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SOC. D 926 m

TOZZER LIBRARY

.. .... Gift^of

Alfred Marston Tozzer

1877 - 1954

PEABODY MUSEUM OF

ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

}^ FROM THE I Jn:T/\R^ qF

>

•^T^^ycLARKE Co.

^^^u>><>gJD"^^

THE CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES,
Edited by HAVELOCK ELLIS.

MORALS:

A TREATISE ON THE PSYCHO-SOCIOLOGICAL
BASES OF ETHICS.

MORALS:

A TREATISE ON THE

PSYCHO-SOCIOLOGICAL BASES
OF ETHICS.

BY

PROFESSOR G. L. DUPRAT.

TRANSLATED BY

W. J. GREENSTREET, M.A., F.R.A.S.

THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.,

PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.G.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,

153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.

1903-

^0

V-

RECEIVED

5BP 1 8 1978

PREFACE.

The field of psychological research has widened by
the triple alliance of psychology, physiology, and
sociology — an alliance at once of the most intimate
and fundamental nature, and productive of far-
reaching results. It need, therefore, occasion no
surprise that among the volumes of a scientific
series is to be found a treatise dealing with ethical
questions. No doubt it is true that ethics and
metaphysics have up to the present been closely
interwoven. Under the guise of ethical theory,
philosophical speculations of the most audacious
type are presented to the student. But recent
works on ethics have not been numerous, and
betray signs of lassitude in those metaphysicians
who paraphrase in general terms the works of Kant,
and seem more anxious to soar into the realms of
lofty thought than to lay the foundations of work
that will be both positive and lasting. It would
seem that the time has come for a system of ethics
less ambitious in its aims, more restricted in its
scope, and based on a more rigorous method of
treatment. To build and complete the temple of

VI PREFACE.

positive morality is beyond our power, but we are
able, at any rate, to claim for the psychologist and
the sociologist the exclusive right of supplying the
moralist with the material for the foundations of his
ethical doctrine.

In the near future it will, no doubt, be a matter
of surprise that men were so pretentious as to
teach morals, and to direct the most complex of
all activities, without having made, as a preliminary,
a sufficiently exhaustive study of man and of society.
We shall be amazed at the subjectivity of moral
conceptions, even while we remember that they
were the work of the greatest minds of every age ;
at assertions based on incomplete and even in-
accurate notions of individual and social life; at
precepts of value to the individual alone, enunciated
by him for the purpose of justifying his manner of
life, systematised " after the event," when prejudices
and preconceived ideas have had their natural effect
on a mind which then offers itself, more or less
unconsciously, as a model to its contemporaries and
their descendants !

Plato, with his aristocratic and Athenian tastes —
Aristotle, saturated with intellectualism — Descartes,
oscillating between science and religion — Spinoza, a
fatalist and mystic, — each in turn has described the
moral ideal according to his own temperament and
personal tendencies, and this they have done in
almost complete self-absorption, as if assured that
all other mortals were fashioned like unto them,

PREFACE. Vll

and that they themselves were the noblest types of
humanity.

For centuries it has seemed that morals could
alone be taught by the " Beyond-man," chosen of
God to guide his fellows, a being instantaneously
inspired, laying down precepts of wisdom, the value
of which was entirely dependent on their beauty and
elevation of thought. It necessarily followed that
the foundations on which these precepts were based
could not be brought to the touchstone of criticism
— they were the inspirations of genius, and sprang
from the depths of the unconscious; like the con-
ceptions of the artist, they could attract and seduce
by appealing to the heart rather than to the reason.

It was not long, however, before those psycho-
logists who had appealed to mental disorders for
light on the conditions of normal life, rounded off
their purely scientific researches by practical appli-
cations in the domains of both politics and morals.
Italian anthropology has linked by the closest ties
the theory of law, of sanction, and of crime to
psychology and psychiatry; sociology has taken its
place among the positive sciences, and its relation
to ethics is beyond dispute.

But we can only link together psychology and
sociology by admitting the mixed, the psycho-
sociological,^ character of most of the sentiments

' Cf. my Rapports de la Psychologic et de la Sociologie (Imprimerie
Nationale, 1899) and Science Sociale et Dkmocratie (Giard et Briere,
1900).

Vlll PREFACE.

and ideas that the moralist has to take into
consideration.

It is no longer necessary to examine these senti-
ments and ideas from the point of view of this or
that moral theory. And as, on the one hand, their
psycho-sociological nature makes them functions of
social life and of the collective future; and as, on
the other hand, the concrete being is the being
which lives in society, and with it ethics is neces-
sarily concerned, it follows that the sociologist must
share his task with the psychologist. Whoever,
therefore, wishes to lay down rules for the guidance
of the conduct of his fellow-creatures must be a
savant before he is a moralist; he must at least be
in a position to avail himself of the scientific data
which are placed at his service by individual and
social psychology. He must realise the inevitable
transformation of the moralist from the "sage" or
the "seer" to the man of science. The doctor-
philosopher of to-day, who, following men like
Charcot, Ribot, and Janet, has introduced into
psychology an entirely new spirit, now applies to
the moral life the really scientific knowledge he has
acquired in his clinical work, in the laboratory, in
the hospital, and in the asylum; he thus welds
together two links in a chain — and even now the
necessity is not sufficiently realised— the study of
nervous or mental diseases and the struggle against
social diseases — i.e., against immorality.

The reader cannot expect that in a volume such

PREFACE. IX

as this human conduct can be treated other than
as a whole. To go into detail, to justify every
assertion, to deduce every consequence, would
necessitate volumes of considerable size. But,
quite apart from that, no single individual could
be found sufficiently competent to undertake the
task. This volume, therefore, contains but a general
view of the foundations of ethics, and of some of
the directing ideas of " really human ** conduct. On
many points, no doubt, knowledge is still lacking;
on many others the science of to-morrow will throw
doubt on the assertions which are supported by the
science of to-day. No one in these matters can
boast with respect to any formula for which he is
responsible — ne varietur. Let each reader amend
what he reads to the best of his ability. A moral
theory is proposed and not imposed; but when it
is propounded in the name of science, there can be
produced in its defence stronger scientific evidence
than is available for the purpose of those who attack,
or amend, or complete it.

G. L. DUPRAT.

CONTENTS.

:^ART I.
THE METHOD.

FACE

I. Ethics, Metaphysics, and Religion ... 2

I. The Moral Crisis — 2. Morals in the Ancient World
— 3. Moral Philosophy — 4. Powerlessness of Philo-
sophy — 5. Powerlessness of Religion — 6. Conditions
of Morality.

II. Scientific Morality 12

7. Independent Ethics — 8. The Science of Ethics —
9. Kantian Ethics and its Postulates— 10. Science and
Ethics— II. The Real and the Ideal— -12. The Tech-
nical Character of Morality — 13. Spiritualism, Idealism,
and Naturalism — 14. Morals as a Technical Process.

III. Individual and Social Ethics 26

15. The Arts and Ethics— 16. Social Ethics— 17. The
Moral Consciousness — 18. The Data of Reason —
19. Rational Conduct — 20. Duty and Moral Worth —

21. Individual Dignity.

IV. The Different Modes of Ethical Re-

search 40

22. The Kantian Method — 23. Plato and Aristotle—
24. Adam Smith — 25. Spencer — 26. Conclusion on
Method.

Xll CONTENTS.

PART II.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAL.

PAGE

I. The Moral Will 52

27. Pure Practical Reason — 28. Moral Action,
Voluntary Action— 29. Perception, Conception, and
Imagination — 30. Attention and Association — 31.
Perception and the Sensorial Type — 32. Self-per-
ception — 33. Instability and Aboulia — 34. Deliberation
— 35. The Conscious Processes— 36. Irreflection and
Good Manners — 37.The Choice of the Best — 38. Priority
of the Tendency over the Idea of the Good — 39. Moral
Subjectivism — 40. Unification of Tendencies and
Heredity — 41. The Reason -r- 42. The Union of
Different Tendencies and of Reason.

II. Liberty and Morality 80

43. Kant and Free-will — 44. The Origin of Character
— 45. Science, Conscience, and Liberty — 46. Be,lief
and Liberty — 47. The Person the Real Agent — 48.
Conclusion.

III. The Moral Tendencies ... ... ... 94

49. Different Tendencies, Different Doctrines — 50.
Naturalism — 51. Hedonism — 52. Epicureanism — 53.
Utilitarianism — 54. Interest and Desire — 55. Egoism
— 56. The Collective Interest — 57. Intellectual Happi-
ness — 58. Mysticism — 59. The Ethics of Spinoza — 60.
The Stoic Morality— 61. The ^Esthetic Sentiment—
62. The Altruistic Tendencies — 63. Generosity — 64.
Sociability — 65. Tendency to Social Organisation.

IV. The Moral Individual 135

66. The Psychological Ideal and Moral Firmness— 67.
Moderation— 68. Virtue and Truth— 69. The Cult of
the Beautiful — 70. Joy — 71. Risk and Exercise.

CONTENTS. XIU

PAGE

V. The Determinism of Immoral Actions ... 152

72. Crime — 73. Crime and the Criminal — 74. Classifi-
cation and Descriptive Summary— 75. The Criminal
by Accident — 76. Insane Criminals — 77. Immorality
of the Imbecile — 78. Intelligent Degenerates — 79. The
Unbalanced— 80. The Criminal by Passion— 81. The
Obsessed — 82. Exaggeration of Good Sentiments —
83. Moral Vertigo — 84. The Criminal Type — 85.
Immoral Effects of Solidarity — 86. Effects of Heredity,
Alcoholism, and Social Disturbances in General.

PART III.

THE SOCIAL IDEAL.
I. Social Evolution ,. ... 189

87. The Present State of Sociology— 88. Social Statics
and Dynamics — 89. The Evolution of the Family —
90. The Matriarchate and the Primitive Condition of
Woman — 91. The Primitive Condition of Children — 92.
The **Patria Potestas" and the Dissolution of the
Family — 93. The Future of the Family — 94. Animal
Societies — 95. Political Life and the Struggle of Classes
— 96. The Idea of Equality — 97. Governments —
98. Plutocracy— 99. Political Evolution and Law —
icx>. The Law of Contract.

11. Social Evolution (continued) 215

loi. The Primitive Economic State — 102. Economic
Evolution — 103. Division of Labour — 104. Association
— 105. Slavery and Property — 106. Property — 107.
Capital and Labour — 108. Collective Sentiments — 109.
Differentiation of the Primitive Sentiments — no. The
Evolution of Sociability — lit. The Religion of
Humanity and of the Unknowable — \\Zs Sociological
Anticipations,

XIV CONTENTS.

PAGE

III. The Social Ideal ... ... 235

113. Individualism and Altruism — 114. The Over-
Man— 115. Sacrifice of the Unfit — 116. The Gospel of
Tolstoi — 117. Renunciation — 118. The Consequences
of Non-resistance to Evil — 1 19. The Necessity of Con-
flict— 120. Despotism— 121. The Meek— 122. The
Aristocracy — 123. Importance of the Theory of Rights.

IV. Rights 257

124. TheFoundationof Rights— 125. Natural Right —
126. Metaphysical Right and Dignity — 127. Rights
of Social Function — 128. Justice and Devotion —
129. Justice and Charity — 130. The Right of Property
— 131. The Share of the Community — 132. Property
and Reform — 133. The Hereditary Transmission of
Property.

V. The State ... ... ... 274

134. The Role of the State— 135. Theories of Sover-
eignty — 136. Summary of the Theories — 137. Relative
Sovereignty and the Social Contract — 138. Duties of
the State — 139. The State and Associations — 140. The
State as Educator — 141. The State as Judge.

VI. The Economic Organisation 292

142. Competition— 143. Subordination of the Economic
Order to a Higher Order— 144. The R61e of the State
— 145. The State Principle and the Corvee — 146.
Taxation — 147. Solidarity in the Economic Order —
148. The Wages System— 149. Co-operation — 150.
The Work of Women and Children— 151. Value of
the Workman — 152. The Choice of a Profession — 153.
The Rights and Duties of the Workman.

VII. The Family, Friendship, and the Collec-
tive Sentiments 314

154. The Rights of Woman~i55. Marriage— 156.
The Co-Education and Equality of the Sexes— 157.

CONTENTS. XV

PAGE

Divorce and Duties towards Children— 158. Duties of
Children — 159. Friendship and Fraternity — 160. Man
in Relation to Animals — 161. Genuine Human Senti-
ments.

PART IV.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST IMMORALITY.

I. Social Responsibility. ... 334

162. Conditions of Responsibility. Intention — 163.
Errors of Appreciation — 164. Insufficient Deliberation
— 165. Irresponsibility — 166. Possible Modification of
the Character — 167. Imputability — 168. Social Action.

11. Sanction and Moral Education 352

169. R81e and Nature of Sanction — 170. Happiness
the Natural Consequence of Moral Action — 171.
Merit — 172. The Immorality of Punishment — 173.
Utilitarian Role of Punishment — 174. Moral Sugges-
tion.

Bibliography ... 371

Index 375

MORALS:

THEIR PSYCHO-SOCIOLOGICAL BASES.

PART I.

THE METHOD.

I. Ethics, Metaphysics, and Religion.

I. The Moral Crisis — 2. Morals in the Ancient World
— 3. Moral Philosophy — 4. Powerlessness of Philosophy
— 5. Powerlessness of Religion — 6. Conditions of
^ Morality,

II. Scientific Morality.

7. Independent Ethics — 8. The Science of Ethics — 9.
Kantian Ethics and its Postulates — 10. Science and
Ethics — II. The Real and the Ideal^ 12, The Technical
Character of Morality — 13. Spiritualism, Idealism, and
Naturalism — 14. Morals as a Technical Process,

III. Individual and Social Ethics.

15. The Arts and Ethics — 16. Social Ethics — 17. The
Moral Consciousness — 18. The Data of Reason — 19.
Rational Conduct — 20. Duty and Moral Worth — 21.
Individual Dignity,

IV. The Different Modes of Ethical Research.

22. The Kantian Method^2'^. Plato and Aristotle —
24. Adam Smith — 25. Spencer— 26, Conclusion on
Method,

I

ETHICS, METAPHYSICS, AND REtlGION.

Ethics, Metaphysics, and Religion.

I. The Moral Crisis.

As the spirit of criticism develops, as simple faith,
superstitions, and even traditions lose their influence
over the masses, and as the increasing complexity
of social, political, and economical relations involves
more instability, more risk of disorder and dis-
aggregation, we more and more appreciate, from the
constant increase of crime, the dangers of moral
anarchy.

During the whole of the nineteenth century the
evolution of ideas and collective sentiments, the
increase in the number of publications of every
kind — books, pamphlets, journals, etc. — and of public
lectures, have introduced into the great current of
popular thought a considerable number of practical
conceptions, which are, however, conflicting and
often irreconcilable. Our age is an age of
criticism ; the foundations of law have been called
in question, and those of traditional law, in parti-
cular, have been destroyed; the family, the city,
civil and religious society have been profoundly
modified in the course of a single century. Reli-
gious faith has ceased to play the important r61e
which seemed to have devolved upon it; on ever}''
side it is disappearing, or at any rate is ceasing to
be an obstacle to immorality. And in the same
manner the " social conscience," if we may use this
term to designate the sum-total of conceptions and
sentiments which are common to a whole race.

MORALS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD. 3

seems to be in a state of hesitation, wavering, and
uncertainty, and to be passing through stages of
groping in the dark, of sudden shock, and of perilous
crisis.

There seems to be nothing to guarantee stability
in morals; the ideas of good and evil, of justice
and injustice, of what is lawful and what is for-
bidden, seem more and more arbitrary, and to
have a merely conventional or even a provisional
value.

2. Morals in the Ancient World.

Was not the existence of this state of confusion
inevitable, and was it not, after all, for the best?
When "social disintegration" had reached its
maximum in ancient Greece, two ethical doctrines,
which have persisted as types to the present day,
made their appearance, and were favourably re-
ceived by those who had remained unaffected by the
subtle dialectic of Plato or the masterly metaphysic
of Aristotle.

In the realm of morals, it was not long before
Stoicism and Epicureanism became rivals throughout
the civilised world, and philosophical conceptions
became definitely supreme in ethics.

Stoicism, it is true, disappeared after a few cen-
turies of incomparable lustre, and was superseded
by Christianity, for which it had in some measure
prepared a lasting triumph. Religion once more
took as its directing principle the care of souls, and
henceforth assumed the r6le of the faithful guardian
of true morality, the deadly enemy of materialism
and atheism, which it persistently and unfairly
accused of corrupting morals and of destroying

4 ETHICS, METAPHYSICS, AND RELIGION.

the sense of duty by the suppression of every
sanction.

Must we assume that the moral crisis of the
present day will end in the same manner? Can
philosophy and religion help us now as they
helped the ancient world? It is very doubtful.
In the first place, the conditions are different.
The ancient world never reached a state of social
complexity comparable to that to which we
have been brought by the political and economical
progress of the century which has just drawn to a
close; most of the problems which we have to
solve are entirely new. Slavery, the condition of
woman in Greece and Rome, the absence of power-
ful machinery and vast industrial centres, the lack
of consideration paid to human dignity, the inade-
quate development of scientific ideas and humani-
tarian tendencies, — all these made the solution of
the moral problem a much easier task than it is at
present.

What, in fact, is Stoicism, but a doctrine of
tension due to reaction against a general relaxation
of morals and a general weakening of the will?
Epicureanism, on the other hand, is purely a
doctrine of apathy springing directly from dis-
couragement, from the absence of conviction, a
doctrine which laid desolate the Greek world at
the very moment when Pyrrhonism was endeavour-
ing, if not actually to destroy action, at least to
deprive it of every motive. The spirit of the
civilised world had then passed that celebrated
stage at which speculations, however bold, did not
disturb the equilibrium of the mental or of the moral
faculties; in which a Plato or an Aristotle could

MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 5

safely propose to mankind an unrealisable ideal, too
confident in the wisdom of their contemporaries to
fear that they were diverging from the golden mean.
On every side was heard the eager question — What
shall we do? And with equal eagerness men adopted
the simple solutions vC^ithin the grasp of the ordinary
intellect — avoid action, endure suffering, resist evil,
— solutions which were rather inspired by the cir-
cumstances of the case than by the genius of an
individual.

Stoicism and Epicureanism^ have not been popular
and have had no effect on morals, because the two
corresponding moral theories were the immediate
outcome of the social state at a period of decadence.
Their success is to be explained rather by socio-
logical considerations than by an examination of
their respective values, and in particular of their
value from the philosophical point of view.

3. Moral Philosophy.

It is farther noticeable that philosophy up to the
present time has not been prone to determine men
to action ; it has remained rather speculative than
practical, whether it has an a priori foundation or
the scientific basis which is usually attributed to it. —
The morality taught by most philosophers is gene-
rally a series of deductions based on metaphysical
principles. These principles have a value that is
entirely subjective ; it is readily seen that they vary
with each school of thought, that they are in mutual
conflict, and that they fall into discredit, being the

' Cf. Guyau, La Morale d* Epicure, p. 186 : " Epicureanism had a
success and excited in its disciples an enthusiasm of which no modern
doctrine can give the slightest idea." — Tr.

6 ETHICS, METAPHYSICS, AND RELIGION.

subject of unceasing controversy. Their basis, if
empirical, is unsound, because of the Hmited number
of facts observed, and we can then confront them
with principles for which with equal weight an
equally incomplete experience claims sanction. Be-
sides, the ordinary mind cannot revert to those very
general principles which the philosopher reaches by
means of subtle analysis, and which alone give value
to deductions and precepts. Finally, a philosophical
system is generally too adventitious a part of the
social future for the morality which is therewith con-
nected to have any influence on long-established
morals, or on minds confused by the disorder of
social forces. Karl Marx was therefore right when
he spoke of the " Poverty of Philosophy " and of its
powerlessness, either to prevent or to remedy moral
crises.

4. Powerlessness of Philosophy.

M. Fouill^e considers ^ that, just as it was said to
the poets — " Shame on the men who can sing while
Rome is burning," so under the present circum-
stances we should "tell the philosophers that they
ought not to be content with speculation when
questions of life and death are in the air." But what
can philosophers do, if they are reduced to a general
knowledge of the world, and deal with a hasty and
provisional systematisation of hypotheses laid down
by experts in every branch of science ? The general
philosophy of science plays a more and more limited
part, and that part is to constantly endeavour to
realise the unity of knowledge by co-ordinating data
of which we feel assured, and hypotheses which do

^ La France au Point de Vue morale.

POWERLESSMES^ 6P pHilosophV. ^

not conflict with these data. This cosmological
work affects action but little, but it is perhaps worth
a man's while to realise with increasing accuracy his
place in the universe, to experience a sense of
modesty when his own insignificance is brought
home to him, and a sense of legitimate pride when
he appreciates the part his race has played in the
course of universal evolution. But that lays down
for him no well-defined line of conduct, and we may
well be amused to see philosophers deducing from a
few vague cosmological premisses an equally vague
formula of duty, compelled as they are to further
the future of the race, to develop to the utmost the
psychic forces, and to secure their triumph over
the unconscious energies at work in the universe.^
If all philosophy must issue in morality, according to
the paraphrase of the fundamental axiom of dualistic
spiritualism, it is certainly unnecessary to speculate
with so much heat.

Apart from rational cosmology, theology cannot
teach us our duty, for if it were to expound to us the
sovereign will, it would be compelled to presuppose
morality, in order to secure its right to represent it
as the supreme rule for human will ; and as its God
would have to be the moral Ideal, it could only be
conceived in accordance with a moral theory. Of all
the philosophical movements of the last century the
most important, if we measure importance by the
effect produced on the ordinary mind, has certainly
been evolutionism. What influence has it had on public
morality? The interest it aroused was mainly due
to the hostility of the clergy, both Catholic and

^ This formula is due to Rudolf MuUer in his NaturwUsemchaftliche
SuUnforschung^ vol. ix. pp. 585 et seq.

8. ETHICS, METAPHYSICS, AND RELIGION.

Protestant ;^ it very soon assumed the character of
bold negation, with respect to the morality of
theology and of religious belief; but this agitation
was futile from the practical point of view — nothing
was gained by bringing home the cause of moral
unity only to the upright conscience and the en-
lightened mind.

5. Powerlessness of Religion.

If philosophy appears to be completely powerless,
may we at least believe that a great religious move-
ment would succeed in remedying moral anarchy?
Contrary to Spencer's view, religion appears from its
origin to have been intimately associated with the
moral development of humanity. M. Durkheim^
even considers that all other social phenomena
(morality included) have issued by way of dissociation
from the religious phenomenon; the relationship
began by being an essentially religious bond. At
most we can ask ourselves if economic organisation
is an exception, and is derived from another source.
" M. Belot ^ thinks that religion in its early stages
contained morality, not like living matter which con-
tains forms which may afterwards be revealed," but
" like a shell which protects the embryo, and which
covers and conceals to a very large extent the spon-
taneous work of which almost all life consists."
However this point of detail may be decided, it is
difficult even to some of our contemporaries to com-

^ White's Hisiory of the Conflict between Science and Religion.

'-^ AnnU sociolo^qtte (2nd year, 1897-98), "Definition des Pheno-
menes religieux."

3 **La Religion comnre Principe sociologique,** Revue philoso-
phiquey March 1900, p. 290.

POWERLESSNESS OF RELIGION. Q

pletely separate ethical from religious idealism, so inti-
mate has their union been for many generations.

However, M. Fouill^e shows, by invoking the testi-
mony of eminent Catholics such as MM. d'Hulst,
Guibert, and Cardinal Bourret, that religious prac-
tices become more and more capable of association
with a fundamental immorality. It seems that a
religious crisis due to the decay of religious senti-
ments has followed almost every stage of the moral
crisis- This is the inverse of what was occasionally
maintained when religious feeling was made the
condition of morality; the latter would rather con-
dition the former.

Doubtless there are stages in every social evolution
in which theological dogma presides over the educa-
tion of youth, in which priests fashion at their will
the intellect and the heart ; but a sacerdotal body is
only powerful, that is to say, really powerful, so long
as it is subject to the influence of existing morals
and of the ethical current. This the writers above
mentioned express very clearly, when they attribute
the decreasing influence of the clergy on public
morality to their remoteness from the concerns of
everyday life, to their intellectual inertia, and to
their ignorance of the general tendencies of modern
society.

We cannot, therefore, count on religion, so called,
to put an end to the moral crisis; religion only
influences those minds which are in need of belief,
and to whom a prophet or a saint brings the faith
for which they crave.

The rapid propagation of Christianity is explained
from a purely sociological^ point of view by the

^ /.^., leaving out of account the belief in the Divinity of Christ.

10 ETHICS, METAPHYSICS, AND RELIGION.

aspirations of a throng of freedmen and slaves, who
welcomed it enthusiastically because they craved
pity, love, and fraternity. The preaching of Moham-
med responded in a similar manner to the mystical
and warlike tendencies of the Arab tribes, the
ethnical character of which assures the persistence of
Islamism. But among the more intelligent and more
educated peoples of the white race, that similarity of
sentiments and tendencies which favours great reli-
gious movements could not persist. The era of great
enthusiasm seems closed, at any rate to our European
civilisation. That is why we appeal ^ to the clergy of
the different denominations to aid religious faith by
the help of psychology and sociology. It is now
obvious that the sharpness of the moral crisis cannot
be diminished by philosophy alone, nor by religion
alone, nor by philosophy and religion combined —
for what assistance can one bring to the other?
It may be that ethical religion contributes from
the very loftiness of its morality to the realisation of
the most complete possible moral unity in humanity;
but its work ought to be preceded in every case by
that of the thinkers and the savants, who, after
having learned to look on man both as a psycholo-
gical and as a social being, would endeavour to
agree on the first principles of human conduct.

6. Conditions of Morality.

Sometimes it is only by social action exercised on
every class of society and individual that moral work
can be accomplished, and that crisis met which is

^ M. Fouillee, for example, in his recent volume, La France au
PoitU de Vue morale.

CONDITIONS OF MORALITY. 11

due to the divergence of individual views. Now dog-
matism, under whatever form it presents itself, cannot
be an acceptable remedy. Truth is not imposed by
brute force; it is proposed by some, accepted by
others, and becomes common thought by the free
adhesion of minds. Everything . that enters into
belief by pathological suggestion, in consequence of
a morbid receptivity of the intellect, may be expelled
in the same way in which it was introduced. The
ethics taught by a master will only become the real
morality of the race if it is discussed, criticised, and
admitted by reason, and never from sheer weakness
of will or mental indolence.

Hence, every man must make his own morality,
and must be therefore rendered capable of making
it for himself; he must be enlightened, guided,
advised, and placed in a position to judge, so that
theory may determine a practice which suits him.
Then, either there will be an inevitable divergence,
and we shall have to give up moral unity and
submit to an indefinite prolongation of the present
crisis, or an agreement will take place which will
at any rate put an end to dissensions on essential
points.

Now the primary characteristic of science is that
it brings minds into agreement by furnishing them
with universal and necessary principles. We may
therefore hope that moral unity will be realised if
ethics can be based on science in general, or on one
of the sciences in particular.

12 SCIENTIFIC MORALITY.

II.
Scientific Morality.

7. Independent Ethics.

Scientific psychology has been reproached with
being soulless; this reproach is really praise, for a
metaphysical theory of the soul, whether materialistic
or spiritualistic, realistic or idealistic, can only viti-
ate any scientific investigation into the nature of
phenomena. In the same manner, to accuse scienti-
fic morality of being a practical doctrine without
theology or preliminary metaphysics is also praise.

No doubt every scientific application assumes
certain philosophic postulates which criticism has
readily discovered: for instance, that there are laws
of nature; that the principle of causality is of
universal value, and of necessary application to
phenomena, etc. This is used to prove — poor
victory — that every philosopher and moralist alike
does the same without hesitation, so that neither
science nor ethics is independent of philosophic
criticism.

This assertion of the rights of philosophy is per-
fectly legitimate. There are philosophic truths, the
most general of all, which have such an objectivity
that one runs no risk in admitting them. Empiricism
and rationalism, realism and idealism, only come
into actual conflict in the region of unverifiable
hypotheses; and science and ethics need not follow
philosophy into this region.

The independence which is claimed by ethics is not

THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. I3

independence with respect to philosophic criticism;
most contemporary thinkers consider, with Kant,
that nothing can escape criticism, ethics no more
than religion or science. But the right that is
accorded to criticism to push its investigations as
far as possible into the first principles of every
science or every theory, into their nature, and even
into their value, does not go so far as to justify the
making of ethics a mere dependency of philosophy.

8. The Science of Ethics.

M. Renouvier has not hesitated to write "of the
science of ethics as a science which is at first a pure
science and subsequently an applied science, under
the name of the principles of law."^ He has even
compared this new science to mathematics, the
simplicity and rigour of which science seem, how-
ever, but ill adapted to favour such a comparison.
" Mathematics and ethics have this much in
common, if they claim to be sciences they must
be based on pure concepts. Experience and history
are further from representing the laws of ethics than
nature is from the accurate realisation of mathe-
matical ideas; but these laws and ideas are rational
forms equally necessary, the one to be the rule of the
senses, and the other to guide and form a judgment
on life."^ But this science which is so near to the
scientific ideal must be based on a philosophic doc-
trine, "for nothing can overthrow one doctrine but
another doctrine; there is a philosophy, and one
alone, which satisfies this condition of being, a

^ Ch. Renouvier, Science de la Morale^ Paris (Ladrange), 1869.
2 Renouvier, op, cit,. Preface.

14 SCIENTIFIC MORALITY.

doctrine Which is distinct from the rest, and that
is critical philosophy, . . . because it is itself, in so
far as it examines, or criticises, or analyses represen-
tations, either a science already, or the beginning of
science in every question which is a subject of con-
troversy among philosophers."

It is to be feared that M. Renouvier exaggerates
the need of critical philosophy to a science which finds
in experience and in history those approximations,
the rectification or completion of which would provide
us with perfect types of moral actions, and which at
the same time are sufficient to draw up the data of
experience and to translate them into perfect geo-
metrical forms. Ethics is in much more urgent
need-^and M. Renouvier himself explicitly admits it —
of the methodic study of psychological and socio-
logical facts both present and past.

9. Kantian Ethics and its Postulates.

Is not the "critical philosophy" of which M.
Renouvier speaks almost identical with the philo-
sophy of Kant, modified no doubt as far as belief in
the noumenon is concerned, but kept intact by the
neo-criticists as far as it affects practical reason ?

Now Kant, no doubt, had the merit of taking duty
as his point of departure, a "rational fact"; that is
to say of such a universality as cannot be misunder-
stood, and as is imposed on all adult and reflective
minds. As M. Dugas^ has remarked, the idea of
duty is common to all moral doctrine, although it
has not always been distinguished from the less
abstract conceptions which envelop it. " It is not

^ Revue philosophique^ 1897, t. xliv. p. 390.

KANTIAN ETHICS AND ITS POSTULATES. 15

foreign to hedonistic morality, and it is essential to
utilitarian ethics, even when reduced to egoism."
Naturalistic morality has closely connected it with
this moral sentiment which, as Darwin says, "we
define by saying it must be obeyed." In every theory
which distinguishes the moral good from every other
good it is this which must be acquired or realised.
Kant was therefore right in devoting himself to
researches which expose him to the charge of " for-
malism," but none the less remain a valuable example
of philosophical analysis.

But after having made ethics the doctrine of
obligation, has he in the sequel safeguarded in-
dependence ? Have not metaphysical and theological
ideas affected deductions which are apparently rigorous
and impartial ?

The Critique of Pure Reason already shows that
Kant had a keen desire to restore belief in God,
in the immortality of the soul, and in liberty — a
belief which was destroyed by the disputes of philo-
sophers, and, which could not be established save
upon new foundations.

Further, Kant also proceeds to make of liberty,
which is unintelligible to us because it exists in " the
intelligible world," the ratio essendi of duty; of future
sanction, the consequence of moral obligation; and
of the existence of God, the consequence of sanction
beyond the tomb. Hence it seems that morality has
for its sole aim the restoration of the idols which
criticism destroys. Not only is ethics thus taken as
the means, not only does it cease to be a real aim,
but it is also placed in relative opposition to the
criticism on which we profess to base it. It is as
much the slave of metaphysics and theology as ever.

l6 SCIENTIFIC MORALITY.

But now its servitude is more disguised, and is even
veiled under the form of supremacy.

lo. Science and Ethics.

We must, on the contrary, have a morality estab-
lished as science is, without preconceived ideas,
without prejudice, without the secret intention of
issuing in the justification of an opinion, be it meta-
physical, or religious, or political. The moralist, like
the savant, must at the beginning of his investiga-
tions be ignorant of the point at which he will
emerge, and must therefore be a man of no particular
school.

But can he do what may be fairly called scientific
work ? M. Durkheimi admits with M. Renouvier the
possibility of constructing "a science of ethics."
The moralists, he says, " who deduce their doctrine
not from an a priori principle, but from certain pro-
positions borrowed from one or more positive sciences,
qualify their scientific morality." ^

Our aim is not to deduce ethics from science, but
to construct the science of ethics, which is quite a
different matter. For that purpose M. Durkheim
"undertakes to determine the reasons of an experi-
mental order on which morality is formed, trans-
formed, and maintained," to study the rules of action

^ La Division du Travail social ^ Preface. Paris, Alcan, 1893.

'^ The term " scientific " has been sometimes quite wrongly applied
to certain moral doctrines by intellects even as keen as that of M. Bout-
roux, who seems to believe that scientific morality is compelled to follow
the lines of the natural sciences, and therefore must in these days l)e
informed by the transformist, evolutionist, and even the materialistic
spirit. It is scarcely necessary to point out the abuse of terms which
leads one to qualify as scientific that morality which is connected with a
scientific hypothesis of indefinite value.

THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. l^

laid down for the individual by collectivity, as well as
by all the other facts of social constraint which have
given birth to the morals of different epochs and of
different countries.

M. Durkheim would scout the idle objection that
science only studies what is or has been. The scientific
knowledge of what is or has been may well give an
idea of what will be, but not of what ought to be, should
be, or would have been. Science, says the sociologist,
" can help us to find the direction in which we should
orientate our conduct, and to determine the ideal
towards which we are but blindly groping. Only,
we cannot raise ourselves to that ideal until we have
observed the real and extricated ourselves from it.
But is it possible to proceed in any other way?
Even the most intemperate idealists cannot follow
any other method, for the ideal rests on nothing if
it is not rooted in reality." ^

II. The Real and the Ideal.

It seems that M. Durkheim and M. Renouvier are
fundamentally agreed that the real needs rectification,
and that rectification is possible. It is true that the
latter expects it from pure reason, by an operation
analogous to that by which mathematics is consti-
tuted, while the former counts on a kind of induction
founded on experience, thanks to which we can
establish a law of social evolution, a social type
which may be realised. " The objective that science
offers to the will " is a " normal type entirely in
agreement with itself, which has eliminated or
redressed the contradictions, that is to say, the

^ Durkheim, op, cit.^ p. 4.

2

l8 SCIEKTII^IC MORALITY.

imperfections, which it contained." M. Durkheim
therefore gives to sociology a r61e which M. Renouvier
refuses to it, and it cannot be denied that the former
has the true scientific spirit which, in proportion as
the fact to be studied becomes more and more complex,
awards a wider r61e to observation, to experiment,
and to induction.

But wide as may be the r61e that is given by
M. Durkheim to social science, the latter cannot be
confused with ethics. If social science were ethics,
it could only " make of us spectators indifferent or
resigned to reality," ^ forcing itself with the Stoic sage
to learn the natural law in order to have further
knowledge of what it reserves to us, whither it teads
us, and whither, in the words of Cleanthes,^ it would
lead us if, in a frenzy at its restrictions, we should
refuse to observe it and to follow it.

" If we know in what direction the evolution of
the right of property is taking place as societies be-
come more voluminous and dense, and if some fresh
increase of volume and density necessitates fresh
modifications, we can foresee them, and foreseeing
them we can will them in advance." This is the Stoic
morality, consisting solely in the pursuit of nature,
in " Ufe in conformity with the natural law," which
sociology reveals to us as rigidly as a law in physics
or astronomy; but we are as little content with that
as is M. Dijrkheim.

Thus some knowledge of a higher order than
social science must regulate our conduct under
certain circumstances, in which it is not enough to

^ /</», tbid,^ p. V.

2 Hymn to Zeus (attributed to Cleanthes, the head of the Stoics
between Zono and Chrysippus).— Tr.

THE TECHNICAL CHARACTER OF MORALITY. IQ

be the passive spectator of natural evolution. Dare
we assert that this will be a real science ?

12. The Technical Character of Morality.

It must be recognised that science cannot issue
from necessity; it does not closely embrace reality,
nor does it embrace it entirely; everything that is
contingent or accidental, everything which depends
on individual variations, escapes it. Its domain is
that of abstractions. The domain of morality is the
field of human actions in which are evolved concrete
beings and complex personalities incessantly in pro-
cess of evolution, integration, and disintegration.

That is why the difference which exists between
moral and physical laws has been for a long time
rightly pointed out. The latter are inviolable ; their
necessity is such that no one can elude their effects ;
the former, on the contrary, are easily eluded ; they
may be either obeyed or violated. They are, there-
fore, not really laws, if it is wise to restrict that
name to the necessary relations established between
two orders of facts, each represented by an abstract
term (which does not correspond more exactly to
any particular fact). The so-called moral laws are
precepts — prescriptions analogous to the prudent
counsel that a father gives his son, or to the tech-
nical rules that a workman teaches his apprentice.

The peculiar characteristic of morality springs
from a different class of considerations.

The normal being is not an unchangeable ideal;
what is normal at a given time for a certain race
or at a certain stage of civilisation is not so under
other circumstances. We, being men of a certain

20 SCIENTIFIC MORALITY.

epoch and of a determined environment, can only
conceive an ideal relative to ourselves, to our mental
structure, to our morals, and to our essential tend-
encies. It is sufficient to consider the evolution of
mind in the few centuries which separate us from
ancient Greece, to see how modified, for instance,
are conceptions as to the social r61e of women
and even the morals of women, or indeed the
fundamental notions either of public law or of the
family.

We shall, therefore, never elaborate a morality of
value to any but a given civilisation and a few
human generations — a morality which will be im-
posed upon men's minds only for a length of time,
which may be long as far as we are concerned, but
very short with reference to human evolution taken
as a whole.

If we can give up the idea of proposing as a, model
to the man of to-day a type that is to be of value at
all times and places, a type that is, therefore, ab-
stract and without influence over the will or over
morals, we must force ourselves to conceive that type
which is in closest conformity with the indications of
sociology. But between this ideal and the scientific
data which are nearest to concrete conceptions,
there is still a considerable gap. How can we fill
that gap ? Experience shows us imperfect types,
systems incompletely realised, and tendencies more
or less divergent. Pure scientific prevision consists
in the application to the future of laws which are
recognised as applicable to the facts of the past ; it
does not, therefore, pass beyond the scope of the
facts laid down by experience. But it can pass
beyond by the aid of what is called "sociological

THE TECHNICAL CHARACTER OF MORALITY. 21

prevision," which is rather a part of "social philo-
sophy " than of social science, for it is composed of
more or less probable hypotheses; it is a kind of
prediction well founded and based on science.

The interpretation of sociological data is already
giving rise to certain variations. Further, the ideal
conceived in conformity with sociological prevision
does not impose itself with sufficient rigour on all
minds for us to be able to conceive without absurdity
of another ideal, different, if not in its essential
features, at least in its details.

As a matter of fact, do we not often meet with
men who appreciate with great justice of view the
social type which the majority of their fellow-citizens
tend to realise — a realisation as regular as it is un-
conscious — and yet who affirm that it is their duty,
and that it would be the duty of all of us, to re-act
against the general tendency, to prevent the realisa-
tion of this type, and to work for the realisation
of another slightly different but still to them a
realisable type ?

Would these people be better informed, better
provided with full scientific information, would they
be more apt to display foresight, if they did not cease
to oppose their ideal to the reality which is in the
process of making, and to condemn whiat exists by
comparing it with what, in their opinion, ought to
exist ? All other men could give way to the pressure
of collectivity, to the constraint exercised by the
multitude, to the apparent necessity of the social
future, while these "idealists," rebelling against
imitation and fashion, opposing custom and received
opinion, would none the less persist in exalting their
own conception, and in encouraging their fellows to

22 SCIENTIFIC MORALITY.

follow them in what they would call "the good
way."

Is such an idealism to be condemned? is it con-
trary to the conception of a really scientific
morality ? And the naturalistic thesis sustained by
those who claim that man ought to live according to
his nature, a nature perhaps fundamentally animal,
ought it a priori to have our preference ? If hesita-
tion is permitted in the choice of two conflicting
theses, it is because we have left the scientific
domain. We have entered into the domain of
practice and of art, and morals is rather a " technical
theory" than a science. It is precisely because we
can conceive of ethics as a technical theory, that
naturalism and idealism can be reconciled.

13. Spiritualism, Idealism, and Naturalism.

In the first place, it is important not to confuse
idealism and spiritualism. "The spiritualistic prin-
ciple tends to a negation of nature," says M. Darlu.
"This is the sign by which the filiation of spiri-
tualistic ideas can be recognised. There is in the
soul a fixed point, spiritual in its nature, analogous
to divine things, as Plato was so fond of saying."^

To say that the spirit is essentially opposed to
nature is to make an affirmation without proof,
obviously inspired by the ancient metaphysical
theory of a radical distinction between matter and
mind, between soul and body, between life and
thought. What is the objective value of this theory,
based, no doubt, as it was, on common beliefs sug-

* La Classification des Idees morales du Temps prisetit, 19CX), pp.
30-36. Paris, Alcan.

SPIRITUALISM, IDEALISM, AND NATURALISM. 23

gested by the sight of death ? So far, both in anti-
quity and in our own times, it has only offered
proofs by introducing into philosophic speculation
a very unsatisfactory dualism, by increasing the
number of insoluble problems, and by compelling a
Descartes to place this mystery at the very beginning
of his explanations.

Nothing has ever proved the distinction and
opposition of the " extended " and the * thinking "
substance, and we ask ourselves the reason of the
extraordinary felicity of that passage in the Timceus^
in which Plato represents the soul as depressed and
dragged down, on entering a natural body. This
purely metaphysical hypothesis is the basis of all
the mystical morality, and is one of the principal
foundations of the spiritualistic morality; the fragi-
lity of the foundation betrays the weakness of the
structure.

But idealism is strongly opposed to dualistic
spiritualism. The existence of psychic phenomena
amid the mechanical psycho-chemical and biological
phenomena, which constitute the rest of nature, is
completely established, as well as the existence of
necessary relations between this and other orders of
facts. Experience shows us in the "phenomena
of the soul," from the humblest to the most lofty,
from simple sensation to the most audacious specula-
tion, the elements of nature and the factors of the
cosmic future; it does not allow us to contrast the
ethics of the mind with the ethics of nature, but it
invites us to participate more and more in universal
evolution by the means with which we have been

^ [?4i et seq. In some respects a more appropriate reference would
have been to the Phaedo, sect. 8i.] — Tr.

24 SCIENTIFIC MORALITY.

provided by nature — by prevision and imagination,
and by the power of the idea. To the ideahst,
everything is impregnated with thought. Nature
and the ideal, far from being mutually exclusive, are
in agreement — nature tending towards an ideal, and
the ideal that we can conceive being necessarily in
the extension of nature. We do not imagine an
ideal for the purpose of mocking at the real, to have
the right of despising nature and of avoiding it as
much as possible, but rather to free ourselves from
natural necessity, to cease to be spectators, powerless
and resigned, of the cosmic evolution.

The knowledge of nature can only explain our
conduct; it can tell us why, our nature and nature
in general being such as they are, we ought to act in
such and such a manner, so as to remain in agreement
with ourselves. It may no doubt be a factor in
progress, for it is always possible to bring about
more systematisation and more coherence in a given
type. But it cannot enable us to evolve new types;
it cannot lead to important modifications; it cannot
show us the necessity of innovation and invention.
Now, invention is as indispensable in ethical as it is
in scientific or in industrial matter. No doubt ethical
invention is subject to the same psychological and
sociological laws as industrial invention : the human
mind cannot be independent of it ; for it to be pro-
ductive, the mind must be associated with anterior
data of which the experience of reality is the only
source; for it to have a value and to be accepted and
fruitful, it must answer to a need and to a powerful
tendency, and it must be the extremity of a line of
which the real and the present is necessarily the
point of departure.

MORALS AS A TECHNICAL PROCESS. 2$

14. Morals as a' Technical Process.

Moral invention which justifies idealism, like other
inventions, cannot, generally speaking, be antici-
pated.^ It may baffle sociological prevision ; it may
by its effects, by its social notoriety, create unex-
pected modifications to which conduct must be
adapted. Now, adaptation to fluctuating or unex-
pected conditions calls into play human art and
human industry. Moral activity becomes thereby a
very complex and delicate art, which must advance
under the guidance of a theory approximating as
closely as possible to practice.

Moral theory is therefore analogous to the art of
the doctor or the carpenter. The scientific know-
ledge of the doctor is manifold, drawn from various
sciences, connected by a practical design, and de-
liberately combined for certain ends. Thus the
combination is of a different type to the disinterested
and methodic character of science, which is uncon-
cerned with any practical end. So it is with the
totality of scientific knowledge, which, together
with certain sociological hypotheses or conjectures,
constitutes the basis of the moral theory, and gives
to it the character of a scientific theory without its
having that of a science properly so called. The
more arbitrary is the conception of the moral ideal
which is an integral part of this theory, the more
remote we are from rigour and objectivity, and the
more we imperil the agreement of the moral con-

^ Of. Guyau, Esqttisse d^une Morale sans Responsabiliti ni Sanction y
p. 30: " Even the acts which issue in complete self-consciousness have
in general their origin in blind instincts and reflex movements." As
we shall see further on, this is true both of the conception and of the
choice of acts.

26 INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS.

science. We may therefore force ourselves to reduce
to a minimum the r61e of subjectivity by incessantly
increasing the sum of scientific knowledge; we must
not hope to annihilate it.

III.
Individual and Social Ethics.

15. The Arts and Ethics,

Although ethics is a theory with a- scientific basis
rather than a science, can we say that it is on every
point analogous to the theories which dominate the
art of the doctor or the carpenter, or which direct
the activity of the artisan ? Is not the art of moral
conduct a higher art ?

Kant asserted that he had established a profound
distinction between ethics and other technical
theories, by showing that the latter furnish "hypo-
thetic imperatives," and the former a "categoric
imperative." The distinction is assuredly correct. A
man cannot be blamed because he does not build a
house, or do the work of a farmer or of a business
man, in the same way that he can be blamed because
he is dishonourable.

But the difference ought never to be exaggerated.
The doctor who, having undertaken the care of a
sick man, shows lack of interest or skill, will rightly
lose in moral reputation for not having performed his
duty as well as he could have performed it had he
been more skilled, better trained, or more devoted to
his patient. That is because in even the lowest of
crafts — if indeed any craft is low — once an end pro-

THE ARTS AND ETHICS. 27

posed has been accepted by the agent, there is an
obHgation to respond to the requirements of that
end, and to reaUse completely all the means that are
best assured to attain that end.

It may be that the first of these obligations is
self-consistency, not to be self-contradictory, and
therefore not to negate one's own nature as a
reasonable being.

The idea of duty is therefore closely connected
with the accomplishment of every task. A man is
not virtuous only at certain hours of the day, and
under certain circumstances; nothing is indifferent to
morality, and the art of doing one's duty is step
by step akin to the art of following one's trade.
Morality also penetrates with its categoric impera-
tive every hypothetical imperative. It aspires not
only to lay down the rules of universal conduct
imposed on all men under all circumstances, but
to control all individual modes of action. And
further, by seeking the realisation of an ideal
common to all minds, it is called upon to sub-
ordinate as closely as possible to that ideal
all private ends, to subordinate them one to
another, or to co-ordinate them in a vast synthetic
unity.

We are, therefore, unable to separate the art of
human conduct from special arts such as those of the
doctor or of the cobbler, without an abstraction which
is prejudicial to the very dignity of morals and to a
healthy appreciation of its scope. It is, on the con-
trary, far better to bring together as much as possible
the ethic of the particular technicalities which are
most dependent on science for assistance. The
architect has his own way of imagining the house

28 INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS.

he intends to build, just as the baker has his own
method of determining the quahty of the bread which
he intends to sell ; but the house must still respond
to the general needs for which buildings are con-
structed, and to the particular requirements which
have determined its construction; while the bread
must satisfy the taste of its purchasers. A fortiori,
the doctor, although he has the choice between many
drugs, and between the various methods of treatment
which are suitable to the case of his patient, sees his
choice is narrowly limited in proportion as his know-
ledge of the temperament of his patient and of the
causes of the disease become more complete. One
step therefore brings us to ethics, that theory of
human activity which is suited to secure not only
physiological, but psychological, and, above all, social
health.

As an intermediary, we find hygiene, the laws of
which are sometimes considered as moral laws —
for instance, when moralists advise temperance,
moderation in pleasure, etc. Moral hygiene is in
every case an important branch of ethics, and it
is impossible to separate it from the hygiene of the
body.

Instead of simply considering the needs of the
organism, as in the case of medicine and ordinary
hygiene, ethics takes into account all the essential
tendencies of man; and, with a view to either
strengthening them or opposing them, the accidental
tendencies of the men of a particular time and place.
Its object is therefore much more complex than that
of medicine; it is the most complex of all, and
the most interesting because it embraces the whole
concrete being.

SOCIAL ETHICS. 29

i6. Social Ethics.

Most moralists have reduced this being to an
abstraction, to man himself. They have taken into
account neither his social relations nor even his cor-
poreal needs and appetites ; they have acted as though
he were a " naked soul " or a " pure intellect." " How-
ever," as M. Boutroux remarks,^ " the modern spirit
is quite determined to imprint the concrete form on
ethics. When we speak of duty in a general sense,
of country, of peace, and of fraternity, we see how
readily men agree; differences only begin when they
discuss the means whereby these noble ends may be
attained. Our life is very complex, and the number
of our relations is daily increasing. We want a
system of morality which enters into every detail,
which does not merely tell us that we must do good,
but in what that good consists. . . . To the ethics of
humanity is joined that of the particular individual
which we happen to be, according to our position in
the world, and in society." " We must not forget,"
says M. Malapert,^ "that beyond the individual there
is the social group and the human race ; in the con-
ception of moral individual perfection, we must there-
fore not merely introduce the idea of society, and of the
fatherland, but also, as Kant expressed it, we must
have in view the perspective of a future humanity
that will be both better and happier. The work of
reformation must be both individual and social. It is
clear that a rigorous distinction, and especially a
formal opposition between individual and social
reform can only be the result of an abstraction."

^ Morale sociaie^ Preface. Alcan, 1899.
^ Ibid.^ pp. 279, 291.

30 INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS.

But must this distinction subsist under any cir-
cumstances, and is not all morality social morality ?
M. Malapert thinks that the difference is great
enough for one to be definitively based on the
other, for social duty to take as its basis individual
duty, defined as "an obligation to realise in one-
self a certain ideal of the human being considered
apart, a well-being, a personal best-being} " If we do
not start from the idea of a duty towards oneself, we
can conceive of a social conduct but not of a social
morality, but we can never deduce from common
utility the conception of a personal and really ethical
obligation." The principal reason M. Malapert gives
for this is that Plato and Aristotle as well as thef
modern socialists, who closely subordinate individual
conduct to sociological conceptions, take as their
aim the individual, the happiness and the perfec-
tion of the individual. "All ethics which has a
sociological character is essentially utilitarian and
naturalistic."

The proof of this does not appear convincing. As
Aristotle claims, the perfection of the citizen may be
the aim of the state, although the perfection of the
state is the aim of every social organisation, and
of every moral, individual, or collective activity;
this apparently vicious circle presents itself in every
organism in which each element may be taken both
as means and end. The health of the entire organism
is as closely connected with the health of the element
as is the integrity of the element with the good
working of the whole organism.

Social morality has not necessarily as its approxi-
mate aim the happiness of the collectivity or of the

^ Moraie soa'a/e, p. 287.

SOCIAL ETHICS. 3I

individual; it can only succeed in assuring this
happiness by prescribing duties. No doubt, as M.
Pillon remarks,^ it is inverting the order of the factors
and consequences to derive moral rules from laws in-
stituted by wise legislators with a view to general
utility ; but it is so because " these laws are imposed
in the name of the just and the good, because the
condition of social institutions is a moral conception of
the obligation to realise the good.'*

If we are to believe M. Malapert,^ duty would first
of all be an obligation towards oneself. Guyau'
denies, and M. Renouvier is far from affirming, that
" Duty towards oneself appears in the agent, alone
and abstract, . . . and is simply determined by him
as a duty to be himself with respect to the different
possibilities which he imagines, foresees, and by
which he is attracted."

This must mean that the obligation wrongly called
duty towards oneself is not, properly speaking, ail
obhgation with respect to any one, but simply the
indication of a manner of being imposed on a moral
agent, which is constrained to be temperate, wise,
and courageous if it desires to be able to fulfil well-
defined obligations. The latter are therefore logically
anterior, although their realisation can only be
chronologically posterior, to the obligation of
being ready for action as the social ideal may
require.

Besides, duty towards oneself, or purely individual
duty, can only proceed from a moral concern for
individual dignity. Whence comes this "eminent
dignity of the human person,*' of which Kant

^ Annie philosophiqu6y 1868. ^ Op. cit.^ p. 50.

* Science de la Morale^ vol. i. p. 24.

32 INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS.

speaks ? What has made us conscious of it ? Our
"moral" consciousness? What, then, is this con-
sciousness ?

17. The Moral Consciousness,

We cannot deny that there is a portion of our
psychological consciousness, a part of our representa-
tions, which, when it is a question of action, forms
a group as distinct as possible from practical con-
ceptions, appetitions, and repulsions, a group even
outside all reflection, and which determines our
actions, or our judgments on the value of actions
or of persons.

The Scotch moralists and their French disciples
of the beginning of the nineteenth century, thought
that all was explained when they had affirmed on the
strength of certain phenomena the existence in us
of a "moral sense" which would enable us to dis-
tinguish good from evil, the good from the evil
and from the less good, just as another sense
enables us to distinguish red from blue and one blue
from the other shades of blue.

But just as in our own time the sensorial opera-
tions have been analysed, and a multitude of
different psycho-physiological data have been dis-
covered which condition the elementary data of our
senses, so psycho-sociology enables us to perceive
under the different impressions of moral value pro-
duced on our minds by different acts or different
persons, the very complex processes conditioned by
heredity, temperament, character, education, the
physical and the social environment, and the degree
of intellectual and rational development.

THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 33

The moral sense has therefore ceased to be as it
were a divine light placed within us to guide and
enlighten us as to the duties imposed upon us by our
noble origin. One would hardly dare in these days
to say with Rousseau^: — "Conscience, conscience!
divine instinct, immortal and celestial voice ! certain
guide of beings who are ignorant and limited, but
free and intelligent; infallible judge of good and evil,
which makes man like unto God ! " We know too well
that conscience is the resultant, varying with the age
and the individual, of very different physical and
social forces, which vary according to the stages
of civilisation through which a tribe or a race has
already passed.

According to Kant, the consciousness does not
know the good; it only knows under what condition
the good may exist ; it is " a law self-introduced into
the soul, which compels respect if not obedience,
before which all tendencies are dumb, although
they are working blindly against it;"^ it is a
noumenal liberty, pure but practical reason; it "is
the principle on which must be based the indis-
pensable condition of the value that men can attribute
to themselves"

Thus liberty, the ratio essendi of duty, becomes
the foundation of human dignity, and therefore
of the so-called duties towards oneself. But it
is a fragile foundation, for this postulated liberty
is not defined, nor is it even conceivable. Have
those who will recognise neither the noumenon
nor liberty any grounds for the recognition of
human dignity?

' £miU^ Book IV. ^ Kant, Critique of Pure Reason^ p. 269.

34 INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS.

1 8. The Data of Reason.

It is correctly asserted^ that Kant endeavoured to
obtain the formal conditions of morality, and that
after stripping the moral consciousness of every em-
pirical datum, he found nothing remains but a legisla-
tion which holds universally good for every reasonable
being. Let us accept this positive datum. Let us
accept, simply as a fact, the reason within us. But
Kant attributes to all men, equally " admitting the
law of duty," an equal moral value. Now, can it be
denied that reason in every individual is subject to a
slow development, and that far from being in every
man at every age the same, it has a practical value
which is quite different according to the degree
attained by the power of reflection ?

No doubt the conceptions and the principles of
which reason is essentially constituted in our minds
are approximately common to all adult consciences;
but the use that men make of them and the import-
ance that they attach to them are very different.
We may admit the existence of a rational tendency
which impels all humanity, but in different degrees
according to individuals, to seek the universality of
observed relations and practical maxims; this tend-
ency causes all men, with the minimum of reflec-
tion, to grasp the idea of duty, of moral obligation
in general. But an idea as vague as this is not
enough to give to a reasonable being the " eminent
dignity " which makes him a respectable being in his
own eyes. But does not reason always furnish some-
thing else besides the idea of abstract duty? The

^ Delbos, " Le Kantisme et la Science dela Morale," liev, Mit, et
de la Morale^ March 1900,

RATIONAL CONDUCT. 35

voice of conscience is not in fact as instructive as
is reflection on rational activity itself. The psycho-
logical analysis of the concept of rational conduct
tells us much more about duty and human dignity
than about the a priori ideas of obligation or respect.

19. Rational Conduct.

For conduct to be rational, it must not, as we
have already seen, be inspired by ideas, tendencies,
or contradictory motives. The first principle of
reasonable thought is in fact that of non-contradic-
tion; hence, the voluntary maintenance of the same
principles and constancy in feeling are already a
guarantee of morality. But that is not enough to
make us reasonable, that is to say to enable us to
furnish a complete explanation of all our acts.

What gives the reason of a fact, is the law which
unites it to others in a constant manner, which brings
it into a causal series ; and what gives the reason of
that causal series is the part that it plays in a sum-
total of series of the same kind — in a system. Is not
rational thought that which links together facts and
arranges them in an order which gives to them a
synthetic unity ? Reasonable conduct, therefore, is
that which is constituted by a series of well-linked
acts, capable of forming a systematic whole.

" This sense of the exact, of the necessary, and of
the perfect in every type," which M. Marion calls
reason,^ and which presides both over our moral and
our mathematical judgment, enables us to establish
a hierarchy of different practical conceptions, and to
award the first importance to those which sub-

^ Solidarity morale, p. 22.

36 INDIVIDUAL. AND SOCIAL ETHICS.

ordinate themselves to the rest, and then the
preference to those which are the most systematic
in themselves, and in the closest conformity to the
system in which they ought to find a place.

By this subordination of the causal series one to
another, and by their subordination to the concep-
tion of totality, men come to have, as John Stuart
MilP puts it (and he cannot be suspected of any tender-
ness to such a way of thinking), a natural tendency
"to give a most marked preference to the manner
of existence which employs their higher faculties."
Hence arises " the sense of dignity which all human
beings possess," as the same philosopher says, " in
one form or another, and in some, though by
no means in exact, proportion to their higher
faculties."

In fact these faculties are the most capable of
making us adopt and determine in ourselves a sys-
tematic conduct. But nothing can compel them
to stay in the system that constitutes an individual;
nothing can prevent us from proceeding from any
system to a more complex system, from passing from
the individual to a collectivity at first restricted, but
afterwards wide enough to embrace humanity.

20. Duty and Moral Worth.

From this obviously flows the moral obligation of
adopting a line of condtwt consistent in itself and in
harmony with a wider system tending to realise the
highest conceivable degree of human activity. This is
the duty laid down a priori, the duty on which all
others are based. How can we, in the first place,

^ Utilitarianism^ p. 12 (nth edition, 1 891).

DUTY AND MORAL WORTH. 37

deduce from it a duty toward oneself? To the
moral consciousness which, like ours, must pass, as
has just been shown, from the conception of the
widest system to that of the narrowest, the individual
at first appears only as a means for the social end
imposed ; individual perfection is only a means
whereby the perfection of the whole may be
realised. Life in society is, in fact, a constant
experience, if not indeed a universal and necessary
conception, which reason can reach a priori.
The idea of the social system is imposed on every
moral conscience that has reached the stage in
which reflection points out systematic conduct as
universally obligatory. The duty which then appears
is the obligation to act in view of the realisation of
the best possible social system. The individual who
fulfils this obligation the best is morally the best
and the worthiest. Thus we have reached a general
explanation of the idea of moral dignity, which
serves as a foundation for self-respect and for the so-
called duties towards oneself. Our dignity is not
derived from that ** intrinsic excellence " of persons
and things of which M. Paul Janet speaks ; it seems
to us that the "relations of excellence and perfec-
tion " mentioned by Malebranche as having to
determine our esteem "and therefore the kind of
love which esteem determines,'* can only be based
on an ethico-sociological foundation. If with Kant
we admit an absolute value which we cannot under-
stand, we must recognise in the individual a relative
moral value corresponding to his aptitude to fulfil
a social function.

And besides, duties towards oneself are obliga-
tions which tend to the acquisition of "private

38 INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS.

virtues," such as wisdom, courage, and tem-
perance. Now, have these virtues value to any
other being than a man who lives in society? To
be wise, in the sense in which we understand it here,
is to possess knowledge combined with rectitude of
judgment. But science is a product of the social
life, which is only important from the moral point
of view, because it brings men into agreement on
objective notions and transforms certain private
beliefs into truths which are imposed on all. To
the isolated individual it gives authority, because
knowledge is foresight and power ; but this power
is necessary to the individual whose civilisation and
whose social evolution have multiplied his needs:
primitive man attached to it but little value.
Rectitude of judgment is of especial importance to
the life of a community; the unsound mind, if it
lives in isolation, has not less enjoyment than
one that is reasonable. And even if science and
knowledge were the possession of a hermit, could
the great joy due to the sentiment of intellectual
perfection, the Amor Dei Intellectualis of a Spinoza,
be considered as really moral? Who does not see
how odious would be to our modern conscience the
conduct of a man who is prudent for himself alone,
learned for himself alone, and for his own personal
satisfaction ? A fortiori^ temperance and courage only
acquire their full value for life in society. A wise,
courageous, and temperate man is of great social
value. That is why the virtues we called private
are so important in ethics. They are the very
condition of the other civic virtues. The obliga-
tions which correspond to them are therefore the
" requisites " of higher obligations.

INDIVIDUAL DIGNITY. 39

21. Individual Dignity.

We are not now raising the question of depriving
the duties of the individual of all value in so far as he
is an individual, or of depriving the moral personality
of all dignity. The personality of the moral agent is
none the less worthy of respect, even though it may
not have an absolute value. Society is not a being in
itself; it is an aggregate of individuals, a system
of systems. The whole is only of value from
its elements. In the social system, each of the
elements is a will, a reason, a conscience; and it
must not be forgotten that the " social conscience "
is either a metaphor, or a totality of ideas and
sentiments which are found in most individual
consciences and exist nowhere else. The part
played by invention in ethics has moreover been
already determined with sufficient precision to
clearly enable us to appreciate the whole value
which is to be attached to those individuals, each
of whom conceives his own ideal, works for the
progress of the whole, and does his share in the
realisation of an ideal.

"The conspicuous dignity of the human person,"
instead of being laid down a priori, or deduced from
some metaphysical postulate, gains by being based
on something more solid, on considerations of a
sociological and psychological order. It appears
perhaps less conspicuous from the moment that it
has a less mysterious foundation; but the respect
due to the individual must have been practically
derived from it alone. We must not let ourselves
be hypnotised by the ego. The doctrine of Kant is
historically in close connection with romanticism,

4b DIFFERENT MODES OF ETHICAL RESEARCH.

which/as has been justly observed, is based on the
" hypertrophy of the ego," and also with the French
Revolution, which was profoundly saturated, and even
corrupted, by a rampant, an outrageous individual-
ism. The moral activity is not an art of individual
piety ; it cannot subsist in the disregard of those
laws of solidarity which bring into intimate relation
the moral safety of men of the same generation and
that of men of previous generations; and cannot
realise itself completely for one if, in some measure,
it does not do so for all. Individual morality must
therefore enter into social morality, and there can be
in it but one morality ; and that is the theory which
dominates what is the human art par excellence, the
art of living in society, while fulfilling all the duties
which are incumbent on the citizens of a given age
and of a given place.

IV.

The Different Modes of Ethical Research.

22. The Kantian Method.

To a new conception of ethics corresponds a new
method of research. Kant introduced an important
modification into the method of his predecessors —
the rationalistic philosophers — by making the study
of duty precede that of the good. He rightly investi-
gated the primary conceptions on which every moral
theory is necessarily based; but no sooner has he
analysed the idea of good will than he deduces from
it that of spontaneous and disinterested obedience to
the law of duty, and loses his way in his exposition
of so-called postulates, over which mathematical

THE KANTIAN METHOD. 4I

postulates have the incontestable advantage of being
infinitely more sound.^ The position and the solu-
tion of the antinomy of practical reason are, to say
the least of it, arbitrary, as we shall see farther on.
And when Kant had to enter into detail, by very
often propounding views which, as we must admit,
were broad and just, he made the mistake of sepa-
rating "applied morality" so completely from
" sociological morality," that the different duties and
the different laws no longer seem more than unsound
adaptations to empirical conditions of the general
theory of duty and of law. M. Renouvier has also
admitted the separation of pure from applied ethics —
viz., the " theory of life." However, duty in general
and undetermined moral obligation can only be con-
ceived as an abstraction — a simple form, application
of which to empirical data is immediately necessary.
None of Kant's predecessors made this distinction;
all no doubt took count of psychological and socio-
logical reality ; but they seem to have been unwilling
to recognise it, except through the medium of their
metaphysical conceptions. Leibnitz,^ for instance,,
interpreted the facts of pleasure and happiness as the
marks of an enlargement of existence, and of a dis-
position towards moral perfection, and that, too,
according to a quite subjective opinion of the
theological value of joy from the point of view of
the divine happiness. Spinoza drew a picture more
geometrico^ of the principal human passions; he, too,
supposed that joy corresponds to a greater quan-

^ Mackenzie, A Manual of Ethics^ pp. 56-70 ; Sidgwick, History
of Ethics^ pp. 271 et seq. — Tr.

^ Encycl, Brit.^ Leibnitz, vol. xiv. p. 422.— Tr.
^ Encycl. Brit., Cartesianism, vol. v. p. 152. — Tr.

42 DIFFERENT MODES OF ETHICAL RESEARCH.

tity and grief to a less quantity -ef being, and that
we cannot have really moral joy if the cause is not in
ourselves or in God.

23. Plato and Aristotle.

Plato had apparently only one method. From the
exact correspondence laid down by him between the
classes of the State and the parts of the soul, one
would think that from a kind of psychology he had
reached a kind of social morality. The artisan class
has in its collectivity appetites and functions ana-
logous to those of the lower part of the soul —
temperance ought to be recommended to them ; the
fighting class has, as the mean part of the soul, that
force which may be placed at the service of evil
proclivities as well as at the service of wisdom ; true
courage to them will consist in moderation, and in
obedience to the counsels of the higher class, a class
essentially wise. Justice will thus be established in
the State as in the individual by the subordination
of him who is morally inferior to him who is morally
superior.^ But we very clearly see that in Plato
there are preconceived ideas which determine the
moral value a priori, apart from any consideration
of order, however rudimentary the scientific char-
acter of that order may be. The soul is of divine
origin, at least as far as its higher parts are concerned;^
and it is a stain on its immortal essence to be united
to a body. In the same way the aristocracy, the
class of the wise, is of infinitely higher origin than
the class of artisans or of labourers. In Plato,

^ Cf. Republic, ii.— Tr.

2 Cf. TifiuBus, sect. 91 : ** The soul is in the very likeness of the
divine;" Phaedo, sect. 79.— Tr.

PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 43

theological and aristocratical prejudices took the
place of method.!

Aristotle has applied to morality his usual process
of investigation, which he expounds in many places,
but notably in the Introduction to his "Treatise
on the Soul." First he collects and criticises the
opinions of his predecessors ; secondly, he seeks what
is necessary and essential, and endeavours to establish
the consequences that flow from the first principles
which he, as a preliminary, discovered. In ethics,
after having shown the characteristics of man, and
that his essence is to think, and that therefore his
highest virtue, his characteristic virtue, is the con-
templation of eternal truths (theoretical virtue),
Aristotle does not forget that man is necessarily a
social being, and that he must carry into social
contingencies virtues which would not be becoming
to God or to a divine being living in isolation.
Hence his theory ^ of the golden mean between all
extremes, a theory in which one may see the doc-
trine of the adaptation of the psychological being to
natural and, in particular, to social necessities.
Thus morality becomes for Aristotle a part of
politics; this he states explicitly and rightly. ^ He
cannot conceive of the wise man without friends,
and the theory of friendship occupies a large place
in his theory of ethics.^ A great number of private
and public virtues are carefully analysed in politics
and in ethics alike. It is, therefore, to be regretted

^ Cf. Republic^ viii.; The Statesman^ passim. — Tr.
2 Ethics, ii. 6.— Tr.

' Politics, Book IV., chap. i. ; J. S. Mackenzie, A Manual of Ethics,
sect 6, p. 27.— Tr.
* Ethics, Book VITT.— Tr.

44 DIFFERENT MODES OF ETHICAL RESEARCH.

that the psychology and the sociology of this great
thinker were not more advanced.^

24. Adam Smith.

The English philosophers in general, and those of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in particular,
thanks to their taste for observation of detail and for
psychological research, have been able to make some
progress in the ethical method. "Doubtless," says
M. Dugas,2 speaking of Adam Smith, " the choice of
sympathy as the sole basis for morals^ may be called
in question ; but not, in my opinion, the method by
which, when once the basis was chosen, Adam Smith
constructed on it his ethics." In fact, "the theory of
the moral sentiments is primarily psychological;"
and Adam Smith holds that morality springs from
the spontaneous development of tendencies; moral
rules are for him but the summary of our senti-
mental experience. He distinguishes between
amiable virtues and those which inspire respect;
but the former spring from the effort of the spectator
to enter into the sentiments of the person interested ;
the latter, such as, for instance, self-control, spring
from the effort of the person interested to control
or influence the nerves or the sensibilities of others.
In this way virtue is always referred to sentiment.
Duty itself is always closely connected with sym-
pathy, for the sentiment of moral obligation is, so

^ Vide Revue Philosophique^ January 1901, an article on "The
Ethics of Antiquity," in which M. Brochard renders full justice to the
genius of Aristotle, merely from the point of view of his system of
morality.

^ Revue Philosophique^ t. xliv. p. 402, loc, cit,

3 Cf. Haldane, Life of Adam Smithy pp. 61 ei seq. (Walter Scott). —
Tr.

ADAM SMITH. 45

to speak, a substitute for the outburst of sympathy :
"the moral rule is nothing more than the example
of the good tendencies of our hearts recalled to our
memory. It is a fact that our sympathy is not
always awake; and further, persons whose absence
of sympathy is accidental, may oppose to the sym-
pathy which they do not experience under present
circumstances the sympathy that they have ex-
perienced under similar circumstances. . . . Duty
supplies the lack of sympathy." Thus, in Adam
Smith, it is the absence of metaphysical postulates,
the predominance of a sentiment, which is rightly
or wrongly affirmed, and which allows of the sys-
tematisation of all conduct, that M. Dugas considers
as the mark of a sound method of moral research.

This is clear if ethics entirely consists of a theory
which, " stating in precise terms and expanding the
idea of duty, is reduced almost to making a complete
analysis of the psychological elements of the will ; "
it is clear if duty is nothing more than " a sentiment
or a totality of sentiments conscious of their value,
of their power, and of their direction, and trans-
formed into custom and rule."i But to take a
psychological view of morality is not in my opinion
to embrace the w hole field of ethics. We can and
we ought to investigate the mental physiology of the
moral being ; but that is not enough if it is true,
as we have shown above, that ethics is a theory of
life in society.

When we have realised in a being the psycho-
logical ideal, we have done no more than to give a
good preparation for social life ; we have not as yet
exhibited the end to be realised.

^ Dugas, loc» cit.

46 DIFFERENT MODES OF ETHICAL RESEARCH.

25. Spencer.

Spencer, the theorist of evolutionism, has simul-
taneously taken into account the data of biology or
psychology, and those of sociology. The "gener-
alisations" afforded by these sciences are in his
opinion the sole possible basis for "a real theory
of balanced life." He has, therefore, rightly
based human conduct in nature, and has en-
deavoured to draw from experience inductions which
may serve as principles for a moral theory.

Spencer's ethics is, in short, as the English
philosopher has himself pointed out, a rational
utilitarianism. "Mr. Herbert Spencer," says John
Stuart Mill, "objects to being considered an
opponent of utilitarianism, and states that he re-
gards happiness as the ultimate end of morality;
but deems that end only partially attainable by
empirical generalisations from the observed results
of conduct, and completely attainable only by de-
ducing from the laws of life and the conditions of
existence, what kinds of action necessarily tend
to produce happiness and what kinds to produce
unhappiness." ^

Now the law which dominates life is the law of
evolution, or the passage from the simple to the
complex, from the homogeneous to the hetero-
geneous, from the indefinite to the definite, by way
of successive integrations. That is why, from the
physical point of view, conduct must pass from
simplicity of movement to complexity of systematised
action; from the biological point of view, it must

^ Utilitarianism (nth ed., 1891), p. 93, note (in a private com-
munication from Mr. Herbert Spencer).

SPENCER. 47

proceed from the accomplishment of a few vital
functions to the equilibrium of numerous actions
tending to the expansion of life; from the psycho-
logical point of view, the transition is from primitive
simplicity of mind to the continuous accumulation
of experiences, transmitted hereditarily and ultim-
ately constituting certain faculties of moral intuition ;
and finally, from the sociological point of view, it
must pass from primitive constraint to the agree-
ment " of the complete life of each with the complete
life of all."

So simple is the deduction which serves as a
scientific basis for evolutionary utilitarianism; it
states in exact terms the conception of happiness,
which Mill's method left far too indeterminate, far
too dependent on free will, or on the experience of
men of the highest repute. Spencer^ tells us the
object of the different orders of functions of which
man is constituted, basing his assertions on scientific
observations; and he finds that the realisation of
these ends coincides with "the greatest happiness
of the greatest number," ^ which may, therefore, be
laid down as the final aim of morality.

But Mr. Spencer has neglected to show that to
obey the law of evolution is a duty. Hence he has
failed in one of the first obligations which are im-
posed on a moralist, that of laying down the ob-
ligation. His ethics has remained naturalistic; his
definition of the "good," to be "sublime," is none
the less empirical.^ To take part in a universal

1 Cf. Daia of Ethics, chap, ii.— Tr.
*^ Edgeworth, Mathematical Psychics , pp. 117 et seq, — Tr.
' Goblot, Essai sur la Classification des Sciences^ p. 265. Alcan,
1898.

48 DIFFERENT MODES OF ETHICAL RESEARCH.

evolution, to realise a life ever more powerful and
rich, remains a hypothetical imperative. "Why
should this universal good be imposed on the will
of the individual ? " It must be shown that pro-
gress is imposed on human thought, as soon as this
thought applies to practices and to conduct the idea of
law, and seeks, in consequence, what is the supreme
law, not so much of nature as of the human mind.

26. Conclusion on Method.

As long as we confine ourselves to representing
nature as inevitably obeying certain laws, we are
free to consider ourselves as outside that blind
nature which is the sport of fatality ; no obligation
is imposed on us. But as soon as human thought is
exhibited to us as obeying in its turn certain laws,
conceiving a principle as necessary and therefore
obligatory — that of seeking everywhere for causes, or
that of establishing out of every diversity a system
— from that moment duty is laid down.

The preliminary step in ethical research is there-
fore the establishment of moral obligation, and the
enunciation of its general form. We have seen
above ^ that the idea of rational activity is imposed
on us because, owing to our mental constitution, we
cannot form any other conception ; that the idea of •
that rational activity embraces the idea of system,
and involves as duty in general the obligation of
realising in the whole domain of human life a
system of systems, a perfect co-ordination of all the
individual and social functions.

Such being the outcome of our preliminary

^ Vide Section 19.

CONCLUSION ON METHOD. 49

investigations, our researches ought to be pursued
independently of any hypothesis, and therefore in-
dependently even of the Spencerian conception of
universal evolution, at first in the order of psycho-
physiological facts, and then in the order of psycho-
sociological facts. Thus the second step w^ill be
constituted by a study of the psychological and
social conditions of moral action.

But we might be reproached w^ith falling into too
exclusive a naturalism if we content ourselves with
establishing the actual nature of the moral being and
the direction of evolution. We have seen above that
morality is not a science or a part of science, but
rather a technology, and that the most general of all ;
and that if based on a science it must be distinguished
from it by a construction of the ideal. This is the
third step in our investigations.

Now, to avoid the a priori constructions which up
to now have been the basis of the greater part of
morality, utilitarian ethics included, we must rely as
little as possible on imagination, and must keep as
close as possible to scientific dat^. If we admit that
the social evolution and the mental constitution of
the individual are perfectly systematic and coherent,
we will not have to seek a higher ideal. If we admit
incompatible tendencies, vices, faults, and excesses
which are injurious to the harmony of the whole
and to the co-ordination of the functions, whether
individual or collective, our duty is to indicate what
ought to be suppressed, developed, or created, in
order that the system may be at the same time as
rich and as harmonious as possible. It is on this
point that the opinions of moralists may differ, but
Wc shall see that the divergence may be of slight

4

50 DIFFERENT MODES OF ETHICAL RESEARCH.

importance if the different writers keep equally close
to the facts and to legitimate inductions.

Finally, there comes a fourth step. When the
causes of vice and moral error, of social and in-
dividual disorder have been determined, they must
next be eliminated from real life. The moralist
must therefore indicate the means most suitable for
the struggle against immorality and for the realisa-
tion of the ideal. The knowledge of these means
flows from that of the causes of disorder ; when we
know the nature of the evil and its source, we can
point out the remedies.

What is a moral theory thus established? Ac-
cording to M. Pillon, a morality which recognises
no relation or link with metaphysics can only be a
morality of sentiment. No doubt it would be so if
our method implied renunciation of the indisputable
right of human reason to co-ordinate sentiments
whether individual or collective, and to judge them
by a general criterion, that of their aptitude to form
part of a rational system. But our method, on the
contrary, makes of its resultant theory a real morality
of duty, both individual and social, of human duty,
in every meaning of the phrase.

PART II.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAL,

I. The Moral Will.

27. Pure Practical Reason — 28. Moral AciioUy Voluntary
Action — 29. Perception^ Conception^ and Imagination —
30. Attention and Association — 31. Perception and the
Sensorial Type — 32. Self-perception — 33. Instability and
Aboulia — 34. Deliberation — 35. The Conscious Processes
— 36. Irrejlection and Good Manners — 37. The Choice of
the Best — 38. Priority of the Tendency over the Idea
of the Good—y). Moral Subjectivism — 40. Unification of
Tendencies and Heredity — 41. The Reason — 42. The
Union of Different Tendencies and of Reason,

II. Liberty and Morality.

43. Kant and Fre^-will — 44. The Origin of Character —
45. Science^ Conscience^ and Liberty — 46. Belief and
Liberty — 47. The Person the Real Agent — 48. Conclusion,

III. Moral Tendencies.

49. Different Tendencies, Different Doctrines — 50. Natural-
ism — 51. Hedonism — 52. Epicureanism — 53. Utilitarian-
ism — 54. Interest and Desire — 55. Egoism — 56. The
Collective Interest — 57. Intellectual Happiness — 58.
Mysticism — 59. The Ethics of Spinoza — 60. The Stoic
Morality — 61. The ^Esthetic Sentiment — 62. The
Altruistic Tendencies — 63. Generosity — 64. Sociability
— 65. Tendency to Social Organisation.

IV. The Moral Individual.

66. The Psychological Ideal and Moral Firmness — 67.
Moderation — 68. Virtue and Truth — 69. The Cult of
the Beautiful^lQ, Joy — 71. Risk and Exercise,

51

52 THE MORAL WILL.

V. The Determinism of Immoral Actions.

72. Crime — 73. Crime and the Criminal— ^ \. Classifica-
tion and Descriptive Summary— T^, The Criminal by
Accident— 'jb. Insane Criminals — TJ, Immorality of the
Imbecile — 78. Intelligent Degenerates — 79. The Un-
balanced — 80. The Criminal by Passion — %i. The
Obsessed — 82. Exaggeration of Good Sentiments — 83.
Moral Vertigo—?,^, The Criminal Type—Z^, Immoral
Effects of Solidarity— Zd. Effects of Heredity^ Alcoholism^
and Social Disturbances in General,

I.

The Moral Will.

27. Pure Practical Reason.

What Kant has considered in man is reason
become practical, but remaining pure, and remote
from any alliance with experience. That is why
his ethics is not a theory of human conduct. If
he had been more of a psychologist and less of a
metaphysician, Kant would have seen the necessity
of taking into account sensibility, tendencies, inclina-
tions, and desires, in some other way than to declare
them hostile to practical reason. Aristotle, more in
the habit of noting the complexity of psychological
and biological phenomena, had taken pains on the
contrary to show that pure intellect cannot of itself
determine action; that its r6le in the control pf
appetite and of tendencies corresponding to sensible
knowledge is limited.^ Spinoza was no doubt in-
spired by Aristotle when he asserted that, in order
to combat the passions, reason must determine an

^ Cf. Da Auimaj Book III., and the Nicomachean Ethics,

MORAL ACTION, VOLUNTARY ACTION. 53

aifection, the "amor Dei intellectualis " ; ^ but
Spinoza was too deeply penetrated with intellectuality
to appreciate the importance of empirical know-
ledge, and of the affections which flow therefrom;
the wise man he describes seems to have to forget
that he is a man, and only conceives himself as part
of God.

28. Moral Action, Voluntary Action.

Psychology has taught contemporary moralists a
wider appreciation of the nature and conditions of
moral activity, which is essentially a voluntary
activity. Although Spencer dimly sees as realisable
in a distant future an ideal of quite instinctive
morality, we need not to hesitate to affirm that
voluntary decision, choice after deliberation, will
remain the characteristic of the moral act from the
psychological point of view, as long as there is any
theoretical controversy and hesitation in practice,
that is to say, as long as human nature is what we
know it to be. Why, in fact, do we generally refuse
to recognise morality in animals, at least in the
sense in which we use the word in speaking
of man ? It is not so much from theological prejudice
or from metaphysical belief in the absence on the one
side, or in the presence on the other, of a liberty
assumed to be indispensable to the formation of a
moral conscience, as from the lack of reflection,
deliberation, and rational choice in the animal.
Beings inferior to man give way in almost all their
actions to instinctive tendencies, in perfect harmony

1 Cf. £^/ius, Books IV. and V.

54 THE MORAL WILL.

with the exigencies of their situation and their en-
vironment and their nature ; so that all their actions
are, so to speak, automatic, although they may
bear the mark of sympath}^ of altruism, and even of
disinterestedness.

Moral theory and scientific thought could not
exercise their influence on instinctive conduct,
whether entirely imitative or springing from the
reproduction, spontaneous or habitual, of anterior
modes of action. They can only influence the con-
duct of a being capable of modifying his manner
of action according to circumstances, accord-
ing to the thoughts which become preponderant
in the mind after deliberation and reflection.
We must therefore consider in the moral
being the being which is capable of voluntarj^
decision.

As a rule, we consider three stages in the fact of
will: first the conception, either of several pos-
sible courses, or simply of an action that it is
still possible to accomplish or not to accomplish,
of a fact that it is possible to realise or not to
realise; secondly, deliberation, or the evocation of
different motives and the ensuing struggle between
the motives; thirdly, the choice, which constitutes
the end of the deliberation and the commencement
of the transition to the phase of movement and in-
hibition.

This distinction is not based, as we shall see, on
the different nature of the three operations, which,
on the contrary, overlap and form but one and the
same act; but we may take it into account in the
analysis of so complex a fact as the voluntary
phenomenon.

PERCEPTION, CONCEPTION, AND IMAGINATION. 55

29. Perception, Conception, and Imagination.

In moral action it is a question of knowing which
of several possible acts or of the two terms of an al-
ternative respond best to the general idea that one has
of the good or of duty. Now, to conceive unusual
modes of action, generous or dangerous, noble and dis-
interested, is not the act of a common intelligence,
at any rate under trivial circumstances. Hence the
imagination plays an important part in the initial
phase of moral action.

The physiology of the mind, as far as the imagination
is concerned, is familiar enough.^ We know that the
imagination is dependent far more than is apparent
on anterior experience. The artist does not conceive
the beautiful without having, first of all, collected
from one side or another the different materials of its
construction; in the same way the most beneficent
being does not at once, and without preparation, or
education, or .exercise, or preliminary experience,
conceive of the most meritorious acts. Certainly
he does not need examples such as he may merely
reproduce with unimportant changes; he is not a
mere imitator, although more prone than one would
suppose to slavish imitation. Sometimes he changes
the nature of an act previously accomplished by him-
self or by another before his eyes, either by adding
to it, or taking from it, or by combining it with
another which furnishes, as it were, a complement;
sometimes he takes from here or there different
elements to form a new whole.^

* This is due in a large measure to M. Ribot's work entitled Vlma-
gination crSatrice, Alcan, 1900.
2 Of. G. F. Stout, Mamml of Psychology, vol. ii, chap. iv. — Tr,

56 THE MORAL WILL.

The operation takes place outside the sphere of the
clear consciousness; it is unintentionally, and with
no clear conception of the physical act which is
accomplished, that the mind dissociates the data
involved in different experiences, and then associates
them and makes of them an original synthesis. The
laws of spontaneous attention explain the dissocia-
tion, and those of cerebral and mental association
explain the synthesis.

30. Attention and Association.

Attention is spontaneously paid in a present
totality to the elements which present a particular
interest to the satisfaction of a more or less profound
tendency. When the tendency is profound it is
lasting, and its effects are constant; the attention
always follows the same direction. In the same way
a sporting dog which has a hereditary tendency to
seek after game recognises a number pf objects only
because they are favourable to the gratification of
his tendency ; just as a Newfoundland dog of which
Romanes 1 speaks only observed in a hatchet and in
an iron wedge, which his master regularly used to
split wood, this common property of serving to split
wood — so much so that when sent to find the
hatchet and not finding it, he brought the wedge.
In the same way, the moral being who has a keen
desire to play a beneficent part in society spon-
taneously attends to all that in the acts of his fellows
and in his own acts presents a character peculiarly
favourable to the realisation of his desire. And from
a large number of experiences accumulated under the

^ Animal Jntelli^ence,

ATTENTION AND ASSOCIATION. 57

same conditions is thus detached a more and more
important group of elements, more or less suited for
combination, but all favourable to the conception of
good actions.

Their combination will take place according to the
laws of systematic association so well exhibited by
M. Paulhan.^ No doubt it is of intportance that the
different materials to be associated have determined
in the brain modifications of neighbouring neurons
ready to associate either by pushing their protoplasmic
prolongations towards one another, or by triumphing
over the obstacle in the way of their direct com-
munication by a variable quantity of neuroglia,^ as
W. James^ has argued, so that the cerebral conti-
guity must have rendered mental association possible ;
but to explain that this association is this parti-
cular synthesis and not another, formed of certain
elements to the exclusion of a great number of others,
we must have recourse to the following principle:
anterior data, capable of forming a systematic
whole corresponding to the tendency which directs
the mental future of the subject at the moment
under consideration, are the only data which
associate.

We see how far dissociation as well as associa-
tion, equally necessary to the conception of acts
that are capable of becoming moral, are dependent
on individual inclinations. The importance of these
factors of the mental life, however, ought not to
make us forget the part that is played by the percep-
tions themselves. On the contrary, the preliminary

^ UActivitc mentale et les Elements cU i^ Esprit, Paris, Alcan.

2 [Connective tissues.]

' Principles of Psychology ^ vol. i. pp. 561 et seq.

58 THE MORAL WILL.

examination of this r6le will the better bring to light
the scope of the tendencies, whether fundamental or
acquired, of the individual, and of the group to which
he belongs.

31. Percebtion and the Sensorial Type,

The perception of objects is not pure passivity.
As W. James ^ has shown, and as experiments which
may be easily repeated will prove, one only perceives
objects from one point of view by calling attention to
certain characters alone, while others remain in the
background; and as all perception consists in con-
struction superadded to actual sensorial data — and in
a spontaneous interpretation of these actual data
by means of anterior data, which, being immediately
evoked, blend with present sensations — we must
recognise that objective perception is, like imagina-
tion, dependent on the tendencies which determine
the course of thought. But further, certain sensorial
data, both present and recalled, are more favoured
than others according to the sensorial type that a
given individual realises. This has its importance
from the point of view of action; in fact, the ex-
aggeration of any type whatever, of the auditive type,
or the visual type, is only produced in general to the
detriment of the qualities which pertain to another
type — the motor type, for example. Now the sen-
sorial type determines the imaginative and associa-
tive type, the type of recollections, of abstractions, in
short, a complete aspect of mental life. An "audi-
tive " or a " visual " person will have a more or less
marked tendency not to act as an " indifferent ** or as

^ Of>. cit.y chap, xix., vol. ii. pp. 76 et seq, — Tr,

SELF-PERCEPTION. 59

a "motor"; he runs the risk of quite a different
conception of the modes of activity ; the conduct of
an artist, a painter, a sculptor, or a musician who
"visualises" or "hears" v^ith an intensity which
sometimes lands him on the threshold of hallucina-
tion wall not have the same aspect, or perhaps even
the same principles, as the conduct of a workman
who realises the motor type, or of a tradesman whose
type has remained undetermined.

We are constantly seeing artists, musicians
especially, make themselves remarkable by some
eccentricity in their conduct; we find, on the other
hand, that different subjects, with an average apti-
tude to experience every kind of sensation, have not
only plenty of good sense from the purely intellectual
point of view, but also a well-marked taste for
moderation in conduct and for regularity in morals.

If we now endeavour to discover why the sensorial
diverges from the indifferent type, we must attribute
a very nearly equal share to the influence of heredity,
which is manifested by the organic aptitudes and the
congenital tendencies of the mind, and to the influence
of education, habits, and acquired tendencies.

32. Self -perception.

The nature of special aptitudes from the point
of view of sensation and perception is of great im-
portance, particularly in relation to action, because of
the quite peculiar manner in which the subject per-
ceives itself, according to the sensorial type to which
it belongs. One point that the psychologists have not,
as a rule, thrown into sufficient relief, is that of
personal perception. It has often been said that we

60 THE MORAL WILL.

perceive ourselves just as we perceive objects external
to us ; sufficient stress has not been laid on the con-
sequences of this objective representation, which is
much more complex than the idea of the ego upon
which, almost exclusively, the attention of philo-
sophers has been fixed. The idea of the ego and the
perception of self are two physical facts as different
as the conception of a body in general and the con-
crete representation of a determined body. If to
apprehend oneself is a mental operation analogous to
every other objective apprehension, we imagine more
than we find; we reinstate many more elements than
are actually given ; we fuse the past and the present.
In accordance with certain sensations, for the most
part organic, we conceive ourselves as concrete beings
habitually presenting definite characters, in which we
have taken more note in the past of certain aspects
than of others, according to the constantly predomi-
nant tendency of our mind, according to the sense of
experience which is most pronounced in us. If one
person perceives himself in particular qua an auditive
or more especially qua a "speculative or an in-
tellectual," another will perceive himself most often
as a " motor," in particular, and more especially, as
active and practical. No doubt we perceive our-
selves in situations so different that the same in-
dividual may be turning attention sometimes to his
speculative aptitudes, and sometimes to his practical
aptitudes; but it is none the less true that each of
us has a usual way of conceiving himself dependent
on the habitual preponderance in clear consciousness
of muscular images and sensations in preference, for
instance, to auditory or visual images.

Can it be denied that this exercises the greatest

INSTABILITY AND ABOULIA. 6l

influence over the nature of the acts which we con-
ceive ? An action is always the action of a deter-
mined person, and to conceive it is to conceive the
accomplishment of a movement, or a series of move-
ments, by a given agent. We represent, more or less
vaguely, and always from some specific point of view,
a concrete being. This being has certain habitual
characteristics, and some aspects of its nature have
caught our attention more than others; and if we are
ourselves the agent, we clearly only conceive that
which can have the closest relations to our own
nature. In other words, because we cannot separate
the act from the agent, the conception of an act that
we can accomplish cannot be separated from the
concrete representation that we have of ourselves.
And that is why an athlete, whose mind is full of
images of struggle, exercises, and muscular con-
tractions, etc., who perceives himself habitually not
so much an intelligent and reasonable being, as a
vigorous organism and a system of powerful muscles,
will more readily conceive of recourse to force and
violence than of recourse to argument, to dialectic,
or to persuasion.

^;i. Instability and A boulia.

Men having neither stable temperament nor firm
character, easily change their type, and in certain
pathological cases successively exhibit different as-
pects (the alternating personalities of hysterical
subjects), and sometimes experience a great diffi-
culty in conceiving action ; it seems as if the source
of practical life is exhausted in them. We call them
aboulic, but they lack will especially because of their

62 THE MORAL WILL.

mental instability, which prevents them from having
a clear conception of themselves. Defective personal
perception involves more or less marked defect in
practical conceptions. How could such beings ever
raise themselves very high in the moral hierarchy ?

No idea attains in their mind sufficient clearness
to determine voluntary action, or even to arouse
deliberation; for clearness of representations in
general, an^ of practical conceptions in particular,
proceeds from the attention which is given to them —
that is to say, in short, from their agreement with
the deeply rooted and constant tendencies of a
subject. When the tendencies are only fugitive,
there is only weakness of attention, and therefore
incapacity from the practical point of view; and
what better sign could be found of the instability of
tendencies than the absence of a constant self-con-
ception, of a personal perception varying insensibly
save in details of secondary importance ?

To sum up: the first stage of moral action, the
conception of practical possibilities, appears to us as
a psychological fact varying with the individual but
closely connected with his character, and of the
highest importance from the point of view of eleva-
tion, value, and of decision itself. For if the choice
is made among the possible courses that are con-
ceived, how can we choose acts which are wide in
their moral scope if we are found incapable of con-
ceiving such acts ?

34. Deliberation.

The conception of an act as simply possible, and
not as necessary, involves the consideration of the

DELIBERATION. 63

following question : Will it be realised, will it be in
the form in which it was conceived, or in a new form
requiring a new conception (which this time is made
in the course of deliberation, in virtue of the incessant
modification of the content of the consciousness) ?

It may be affirmed that in most voluntary acts, if
not in all, the primitive conceptions are modified by
the sole fact that one hesitates in their immediate
realisation, and that they are submitted to an ex-
amination. In fact this examination is always
arousing motives and sentiments in favour of or
opposed to the project in question, which thus
appears in a new form at every step taken in the
process of deliberation. As M. Bergsen has clearly
pointed out,^ we too often neglect to consider the
incessant progress made in the mind by a practical
idea of which we are examining the advantages and
the disadvantages; instead of remaining fixed as a
thing, this idea participates in the movement of the
thought, in the life of the "soul," that totality of
images, of ideas, of emotions, and of actions, the
existence of which is conditioned by instability.
Sometimes, deliberation and conception have been
contrasted, not only as we have just contrasted them,
for the purposes of analysis, but by distinguishing
them carefully one from another, as two successive
phases which cannot overlap. To deliberate, how-
ever, is in a sense to continue the work of the con-
ception of an act until the synthesis of the motor
images is sufficiently powerful in the consciousness
to determine the corresponding muscular exertions.

But at this second stage it is no longer imagina-
tion, mental association, and memory which play the

^ Les Dannies immcdiates de la Conscience,

64 THE MORAL WILL.

principal r6le; it is the sentiments, the emotions, and
the tendencies, the reasonings and the beliefs.

A practical idea arises in the mind by the partly
sub-conscious play which we have described above;
it immediately pleases or displeases; it is in conflict
with or is favoured by certain beliefs; it is in agree-
ment or disagreement with certain principles, pre-
judices, scientific axioms, or simple judgments of
the aesthetic taste; and finally, with the aid of certain
general propositions, the mind deduces the particular
consequences of the act proposed; or rather, that act
is brought into relation with other particular analo-
gous facts, and from them is derived a particular
rule, which is or is not in harmony with rules which
have been previously admitted. ' This is a summary
description of the processus of deliberation ; the pro-
cessus is repeated more or less completely as many
times as the idea is even ever so slightly modified;
so that sometimes deliberation is of considerable
duration, which may be an index of the always very
great complexity of such a mental act.

It is easily seen that when it is a question of a
moral act to be deliberately accomplished, the nature
of the psychic processus is very complex. Kant,^ in his
far too summary psychology, only admitted one motive
of moral conduct ; he held that only the sentiment of
respect for the law of duty, an a priori sentiment, and
the only one we can conceive as necessary, should de-
termine the choice of the reasonable being. Delibera-
tion could not therefore be of long duration, hesitation
was not permitted, all other sentiments but moral
respect being at once avoided as " pathological.*'

^ Cf. Bradley, Ethical Studies^ Essay iv. ; Mackenzie, 0}). cit. , chap.
V. ; Sidj wick, Outlines of the History of Ethic s^ p. 272. — Tr.

DELIBERATION. 63

It is true, no doubt, that Kant recognised that
whatever be a man's morahty he has never yet acted
out of pure respect for the moral law. His theory,
ipso facto, applies to superhuman beings. An ethical
doctrine which professes to direct the conduct of
men ought to take into account the psychological
complexity of our nature. " Nothing,*' says M.
Renouvier,^ " could do more to prevent the diffusion
of the principles of Kant in the world than to
require — so uselessly for the foundations of this
theory, so vainly when we consider man as he is
constituted, and even human nature as we can
understand it — that action, to be morally good,
must be exempt from passion. He himself con-
fessed that he did not know if any action of the
kind had ever taken place; and I may add, that
I do not know if the purely rational agent, sup-
posing such an agent were possible, would be
morally superior to the purely 'passionate' agent,
being given identical data of action. I think it is
doubtful."

Contemporary disciples of Kant have recognised
that ** passion is part of a man's nature ";2 that there
are sentiments (such as love) which may be approved
by reason ; and finally, that " the general agreement
between sentiment and reason is complete" in the
conception of a really human ideal. " Every thesis
which definitively separates the elements of human
nature is erroneous. Man is an order, a harmony of
reciprocally conditioned and therefore inseparable
functions."

The occasionally dramatic character of deliberation
is due to the conflict of different tendencies. The

^ Science de la Morale^ p. 185. ^ Renouvier, ibid,

5

66 THE MORAL WILL.

opposition of the vilest and the most generous pas-
sions, or the grossest appetites and the loftiest
inclinations, compels the mind of the moral agent
to pass through peculiarly exciting alternatives
when it is a question of critical determinations.
The more a mind is developed, the more numerous
are the tendencies which a practical conception
" awakens, and associates itself with for the purpose
of strengthening or weakening itself," if one may use
such expressions, considering the ideas as capable
of attraction or repulsion, and of association with
the emotions, the inclinations, the desires, etc. In
reality it is the personal consciousness which be-
comes this or that, which successively admits
according to its law of evolution, according to its
fundamental nature, sometimes one tendency, some-
times another, this in turn giving place to a third;
while others, less clearly perceived at first, approach
the point of apperception, or prepare for the appear-
ance of another.

35. The Conscious Processes.

The conflict is not so much a struggle between
simultaneously presented elements, as a succession of
facts of consciousness, which being incapable of
simultaneous presence in clear consciousness, must
each await its turn; so that each first appears
victorious over all the others only to be im-
mediately dethroned by its successor.

It is of importance on this point to destroy a
general misconception, due to the metaphors which
are used in the ordinary language of psychologists.
They present deliberation as a kind of progressive

THE CONSCIOUS PROCESSES. 67

accumulation, in the two scales of a balance, of
weight and counterweight, having each its mental
effect just as the metal weights have each the
physical effect which is inherent in them. Inclina-
tions are thus transformed into things, instead of
being considered as simple, fugitive modifications
of an essentially unstable subject, necessarily in
process of change.

In reality, in deliberation there is a state of con-
sciousness which is being more or less slowly
elaborated, which will be complex in proportion as
the states of anterior consciousness have been pro-
gressively more complex, have each embraced in its
synthetic unity an ever-increasing number of ends
and feelings. The practical idea gathers like a snow-
ball because the thought develops, being maintained
in a constant direction by the attention accorded at
first to a conception, and maintained and revived
unceasingly by the interest the conception offers from
several points of view»^

The condition of attention, as we have seen, is that
the representations are as concrete as possible, and
are closely connected with the interests of the indi-
vidual, or associated with the characteristic tendencies
of the being. Deliberation is therefore the natural
consequence of an interesting conception. If the
tendency to which responds the practical idea which
has been conceived is a simple tendency, exclusive of
any other — a passion or an appetite which demands
to be satisfied without our being able to oppose it by
another sentiment,— ^then deliberation is immediately
concluded. If the direction taken by the mind is
less unilinear, if the attention is attracted in different

^ Cf. James, oJ>, cU,, ii. 528.— Tr.

68 THE MORAL WILL.

directions, thanks to the intrusion of different inte-
rests, then deliberation lasts until the oscillations of
the attention cease.^ In the animal the attention is
especially unilinear, and that is why in the conduct
towards man of the inferior beings there is no
important modification or prolonged hesitation; the
appetite of the animal carries it at once 'by the
shortest and the easiest way, and therefore most
often by hereditary means, to realisation or ends
which are always the same, or vary but little from
generation to generation. During three-quarters of
his existence man is no doubt purely and simply an
animal; instead of reasoning he is often content to
infer; instead of willing he repeats and imitates;
instead of discussing he obeys; and there is no
greater tyranny than that of habits of mind fortified
by collective custom, fashion, and social constraint,
to which, as we shall see farther on, we give way
unconsciously, and which dictate in many cases our
conduct, pointing out the means and the ends.

36. Irreflection and Good Manners.

The distinction between manners and morality
depends entirely on the fact that we may have good
manners according to the environment in which we
live without having real morality, and unmoral good
manners are created the more easily in proportion as
we are the slaves of custom, tradition, the require-
ments of our age, country, caste, or city, and in
proportion as we live mechanically, the sport of
exterior influences.

To examine human nature from the point of view

^ James, op. cit,^ ii. 529. — Tr.

IRREFLECTION AND GOOD MANNERS. 69

of the action which is most in conformity with that
nature itself, taken in all its complexity, we can con-
ceive of a mode of determination superior to that of so
many people who have only good manners, who only
choose in reality what others have chosen for them,
and only approve of what is approved in their own
environment, etc. People of this type never expe-
rience the feeling, almost approaching anguish,^
which is not infrequent in the being who meditates,
sees the inconveniences and the advantages, and
has to decide in spite of his doubts, in spite of
apprehensions which are often stronger in pro-
portion to the length and the conscientiousness of
his reflection.

Such a man has evidently used a human privilege ;
some may say that it is a melancholy privilege ; human
nature has what are obviously defects, but defects to
which its greatness when compared to animal nature
is due. If the beasts have instinct with its relative
certainty and invariability, they have not the merit
of a voluntary decision which is sometimes painful,
and sometimes unfortunate, in spite of good inten-
tions, but which is still a decision alone worthy of a
being who aspires to self-guidance.

Facts show that most men, and especially those
whom the majority consider as the best representa-
tives of the human race, believe that the superiority
of man over the other animals springs from that
multilinear attention which M. Ribot distinguishes
from animal attention by calling the one spontaneous
and the other voluntary. It is therefore agreed that
in the present conditions of human existence we

* Video meliora proboqite^ deUriora sequor. — OviD, Metain.y vii.
20.— Tr.

70 THE MORAL WILL.

must attribute the greatest importance to the diver-
sities of the tendencies in deliberation.

37. The Choice of the Best.

Now when a man deliberates on the investment of
his fortune, — if he chooses, for instance, to build a
comfortable house rather than to invest his money
in the funds or in property, — what determines his
choice is the desire to satisfy the tendency which he
thinks the best. It would be absurd for him to satisfy
himself by the gratification of a desire or of an appetite
of which he disapproved ; it would be at once self-
approval and self-disapproval to consider a tendency
as evil and to act as if it were good. No doubt a
man may openly disapprove with his lips, and yet at
the bottom of his heart approve of one and the same
tendency, and all the time be acting quite bond
fide; for not infrequently are we led by our
reasoning to conclusions which we do not trust,
and which we formulate without conviction, under
the influence of a logic which is that of the lan-
guage and the mind, but at which the passion
that, in spite of all cavil, possesses us, is moved
to mirth.

What is impossible, and Socrates^ clearly saw this,
is that we should know one thing to be good and
proclaim another to be bad, sincerely and from the
bottom of our hearts, and yet in spite of this that
we should choose the latter. For that to be so,
according to Aristotle,*^ we can only have a general
recognition of good and evil, and we must blunder
in our reasoning in passing from the general to the
particular.

* Meno, 77.— Tr. - Cf. Ethics, Book IIL, chaps. i.-v.—TR.

PRIORITY OF THE TENDENCY OVER THE IDEA. 71

Now the good, from the point of view of the
psychologist, is simply the object of a desire, of a
tendency. The idea of the good is only universal
because the tendency is, every tendency responding
to ithe category of end. Tendencies differ, and so do the
different forms of the gQod ; and just as certain tend-
encies conflict and others overlap, so there are
irreconcilable forms of the good, and forms of the
good which serve as means to the realisation of
higher forms. The conflict between tendencies
corresponds to a definitive or transient opposition of
ends or forms of good.

38. Priority of the Tendency over the Idea of
the Good.

But is it the end which determines the tendency,
or is it the tendency we have experienced which
makes us conceive of certain ends and forms of good ?
This is the question recently asked by the physio-
logical psychologists, as they are sometimes called in
opposition to the psychologists of the intellectualistic
school. To the former it is the outlined movement
which by its direction reveals the end to which the
vital processus tends; by taking into account the
biological modifications and their object we acquire
the psychological notion of tendency. Natural
adaptation is therefore anterior to conscious finality,
just as movement is to intention, or the reflex action
to the voluntary act.

It follows that we are not conscious of all the
tendencies of our being, of the appetites which
govern us and determine us without our knowledge,
and which combine we know not how. We outline

72 THE MORAL WILL.

our movements, and we are not the masters of these
outlines of action. Their fundamental determinism
causes the determinism of our voluntary deliberations.
This determinism of psychic by biological facts, and
this subordination of conscious tendencies to uncon-
scious appetites, are of the utmost importance in the
examination of deliberation and of voluntary choice,
especially when that choice is moral. If the good is
the aim of the tendency (instead of determining the
tendency itself, as most philosophers and moralists
suppose), each will conceive the supreme good
according to his predominant tendency, and this
tendency will triumph over the others in energy and
constancy, not by a free act, not in virtue of an inex-
plicable decision of the mysterious will, but in virtue
of that biological determinism which is expressed by
the word "temperament" or "character.'' .

39. Moral Subjectivism.

Hence, each will conceive the good in his own way,
according to his psycho-physiological nature, and
will be led by that nature to one choice rather than
to another, since in the succession of phenomena
of which deliberation is composed, the tendencies
appear each in its turn, and all save one disappear,
whether they are eliminated altogether or blended
with that which persists, uniting with it in order
to definitively fix the attention. Undoubtedly this
scientific datum, if exact and exclusive of every other
datum more favourable to morality, runs the risk of
inducing us to abandon purely and simply every
attempt to exercise by theories, discourses, or exhor-
tations, any influence whatever on the determinations

UNIFICATION OF TENDENCIES AND HEREDITY. 73

of our fellows. Those alone can be convinced of the
excellence of a form of good, whose tendencies are
orientated and hierarchised in the direction of that
good ; those who have an ardent and passionate tem-
perament will necessarily adopt a hedonist morality;
those whose temperament is cold will only compre-
hend a utilitarian morality; in short, we must adapt
moral theories to the different temperaments, and
not try to subject all types of man to a single
rule.

But the scope of individual differences must not be
exaggerated; in many cases human solidarity has
the same effect as animal instinct with its uniformity
and specific character.^

40. Unification of Tendencies and Heredity,

This solidarity has a twofold psychological founda-
tion — sympathy and heredity. Sympathy is the
mark of an aptitude, as it were, to put oneself in unison
with others, especially from the emotional point of
view. Such an aptitude allows of the ready propaga-
tion, in the crowd, of the emotions, tendencies, and
sentiments of a few individuals. It is the cause of
spontaneous imitation, alogical, and sometimes illo-
gical, and M. Tarde^ has shown us how important
this imitation is from the point of view of morals.
It creates collective sentiments, emotions, and tend-
encies, sometimes so violent that, like individual
passions, they tend to destroy all that is opposed to
their development ; ipso facto it is the principle of
social constraint. Men in more or less numbers,

^ Cf. Guyau, Education and Heredity (Walter Scott), pp. 82, 83.— Tr.
•* Les Lois de Vlmitation^ pp. 158-212, sind passim. — Tr.

74 THE MORAL WILL.

united by a solidarity of sentiment and therefore of
interest, will always try to impose on individuals
their manner of seeing and feeling ; and they will
only discover that they can not attain their object
of imposing it on most isolated minds by a constant
repetition of the same acts, inducing a habit, more
and more inhibitive to unfavourable reactions.

The result is that men living in society (and how
can they live otherwise ?) have with few excep-
tions mutual solidarity in good as well as evil, and
are incapable of isolating themselves to live each
according to his own caprice, and according to an
original conception. The " gregarious instinct "
created the primitive solidarity, that of animals,
which M. Durkheim calls "mechanical solidarity."^
Now the gregarious instinct is simply the result of
sympathy, of moral contagion, of the constraint
naturally exercised on the individual by collectivity.
As soon as he became conscious of this instinct, man
caused it to disappear as far as its form is concerned ;
but he could not destroy its causes, and therefore the
most important of these causes still subsist. All
society tends to uniformity of manners through uni-
formity of emotions, tendencies, and sentiments.
This acquired uniformity is made hereditary by the
individual or social transmission of aptitudes. The
power of tradition cannot be gainsaid. The family
forms a complete solidarity of several successive
generations; the same spirit animates its different
members, characters are brought into harmony, and
just as one might give a generic image of the in-
dividuals who compose the family aggregate, so one
might discover their common character from the

1 op, cii., pp. 73.117.— Tr.

UNIFICATION OF TENDENCIES AND HEREDITY. 75

point of view of manners, sentiments, modes of
emotional reaction and of appetition.

In the city as in the family, in the state as in
the city, in the race as in the state, although with
diminishing force, may be manifested in the same
way the solidarity of successive generations, the
more recent inheriting their prejudices and inclina-
tions from their predecessors.

We must therefore add to the immediate influence
of imitation the repeated influences which are exer-
cised on ancestral consciousness, and which have
contributed to the birth of hereditary tendencies
favourable to some modes of conduct and unfavour-
able to others. If it is safer not to assert the
hereditary transmission of more or less complex
ideas, of conceptions as comprehensive as those of
a certain moral good, we may believe in the trans-
mission of certain appetitions and repulsions which
are created by the contact of mind and experience,
and which then determine a series of acts and a sum-
total of habits, in some measure instinctive, of which
it would be difficult for the agent to explain the
origin and the formation. These tendencies, which
rise one knows not whence, possess an imperious
character which can very often convert into
categorical imperatives precepts which at first were
technical rules or counsels of prudence, or simple
forms of obedience to the collective will. The in-
dividual who feels rising within him in this way
sentiments of obligation of which he does not know
the psycho-physiological source, is naturally prone to
believe that he hears " the voice of conscience," and
that he is benefiting by a " revelation of duty.'*

Very often a mgin has a noble or a mean soul be-

76 THE MORAL WILL.

cause he is hereditarily predisposed to independence
of mind and to freedom, or to docility, humility, and
obedience, by the aptitude and manner of action of
several preceding generations. We then feel it our
duty either to revolt against tyranny, or to assist the
weak, or to abstain from every form of cupidity or
meanness, or, on the other hand, we are disposed to
submission, compliance, or vengeance.

We have discussed the individual determinism due
to the influence which is exercised by the peculiar
temperament and character of each being on his
tendencies and his decisions. We now see another
determinism, that which springs from the influence
exercised on the individual by the social environ-
ment in which he lives, and in which his ancestors
have lived, an influence which tends to nothing less
than to make him as like as possible to his fellow-
men. These two determinisms are therefore in
conflict, unless the former becomes continuous
with the latter, owing to the simple fact that
the individual temperament and character are
almost entirely forined by the environment and by
heredity.

Whether the individual tendencies are in harmony
or in disagreement with the collective, the latter
are none the less important factors, though very often
ignored, of voluntary deliberation. In spite of our-
selves we are the product of our age, country, and
race; and, however keen may be the desire to be
singular, even if we wished to push originality to the
verge of the bizarre and the eccentric, we cannot
succeed, so deeply are we impregnated, so to speak,
by the collective spirit.

Here, then, is the principal obstacle to the

THE REASON. 77

establishment of a morality which has already been
successfully attacked; the fundamental sociability
of man is opposed to each having his own concep-
tion of the good and of practical tendencies, a
conception radically different from that of his
contemporaries.

41. The Reason.

But we have, so far, omitted to remember that
man is a reasonable animal, and that in addition
to his animal appetites — assuredly born of un-
conscious appetitions of the different elements of
his being, such as the appetite for food or the
sexual appetite — he possesses tendencies to intel-
lectual life, such as are afforded by study, medita-
tion, the contemplation of beauty, etc. The most
empirical psychology may recognise that man
experiences pleasure in thinking, acting, and reason-
ing in a rational manner. These tendencies, no
doubt, do not come to him from the organism;
this pleasure is not so clearly psycho - physiological
as the other emotions; but it is none the less true
that certain savants have had the passion for truth,
a passion which has proved the dominant rule of
their lives, and that other men — artists, dilettanti,
and "believers'* — have had a lasting and fruitful
passion for the beautiful, and for the rationally
conceived ideal.

We must therefore recognise that the desire of
living the rational life, so far from not being clearly
preponderant in all men, is nevertheless almost uni-
versal, and that, as Spinoza said,^ the love of reason

1 Cf. Guyau, La Morale d'ipicure, iii. pp. 235, 236.— Tr,

78 THE MORAL WILL.

is of all human tendencies the most capable of
bringing us into agreement.

We may preach to our fellows the love of reason
without the fear that their different temperaments
will lead them to turn a deaf ear to us. Even the
most passionate almost always wish to act reason-
ably, and try to understand and to make their action
and their choice understood by indicating the why
and the wherefore.

If the animal could be questioned as to his acts
and his motives he could only argue from the act
that he necessarily conceives, and that his nature
causes him to conceive; man questioned in the
same way, seeks as a rule the reason of his choice
in a perfectly human motive, the desire for systematic
action,^ and he recognises that he is only wrong
when it is proved to him either that his conduct
is not coherent or that his choice lacks rationality.

It is because reflection on his own nature can give
to man these tendencies that pure physiology will
never explain them, or will only explain them im-
perfectly. Finding that he can learn, man tries to
analyse these processes of his knowledge ; he rises to
the idea of necessity or law, and from that moment
he seeks around him what is necessary — obedience to
the law. Necessity implies universality. The law
is theoretical or practical.

When it is practical, it is called the rule of
universal conduct, and thus the love of reason
involves respect for the moral law. Kant's psycho-
logy was correct when he imagined that he saw
this sentiment, which is the motive of the noblest
human actions, involved in what is generally called

^ Vide Section 19.

THE UNION OF TENDENCIES AND OF REASON. 79

" good will." That is certainly a great psychological
truth. Man has a very strong tendency to act from
good will — that is to say, out of respect for a rational
rule. This tendency may counterbalance the effect
of many others, and, in a large measure, may con-
tribute to the final decision.

42. The Union of Different Tendencies and
of Reason,

The desire of acting rationally cannot always be
in itself alone the determinant motive of voluntary
action; it must be united to others having a more
concrete and therefore more attractive object than
reason. Intellectual desire only acts energetically
on the human mind when it is united to appetites
and desires which have their roots in the depths of
our psycho-physiological being. Is such an alliance
possible ? Kant did not doubt it, because he believed
that you will never meet with a man who has acted
through pure respect for the moral law and from
practical pure reason. And further, every kind of
sentiment may present in its totality a rational
character, for the desire of realising a system, far
from excluding different tendencies, implies on the
contrary tendencies as varied as possible.

Thus we find what we thought we had lost
in the course of our psychological analysis : the
possibility of acting on others by moral theories,
the faculty that men have of a mutual agree-
ment to adopt a rule or a collection of common
rules of conduct, which are objective, imposing
themselves on all in the name of a power revered
by all, a power which is no more exterior than

8o LIBERTY AND MORALITY.

interior, and which rather is immanent in each of us,
only compelling us to act by means of the influence
which we attribute to it.

But being reasonable by nature, as by nature we
are led to the satisfaction of numerous appetites, we
become more or less reasonable as we become more
or less impulsive, according to the education we have
received, our environment, our circumstances, and the
physical, biological, and sociological influences to
which we are exposed. Thus we are sometimes more
and sometimes less disposed to act rationally. There
are ethical civilisations and hedonistic civilisations;
others, again, are utilitarian, and others idealist —
civilisations of every kind, some more and some less
suited to the development of those higher tendencies
which are characteristic of human nature.

In short, tendencies, whether hereditary or ac-
quired, whether part and parcel of our character
or preponderant but for the moment (and in these
we include rational tendencies), seem, so far, to be
the only determinant causes of our moral volitions
as much by the influence that they exercise on con-
ception and deliberation, as by the choice which
they involve.

II.

Liberty and Morality.

43. Kant and Free Will.

What becomes of liberty in the presence of so
much determinism ? We know what importance
the affirmation or negation of **free will" has

KANT AND FREE WILL. 8l

assumed in moral theories. Kant admitted as
necessary "the supposition of independence with
respect to the world of the senses, and that of the
existence of a faculty to determine one's own wall
according to the law of the intelligible world," ^ or, to
put it in another way, " the causality of a being in so
far as he belongs to the intelligible world; "^ but he
did not believe in the free causality of a phenomenal
being; in the world of phenomena he saw nothing
but determinism.

In the sensible sphere, which alone is of interest
to positivists and phenomenists as the only one that
we can know, Kant was content with respect for
the law of duty as the sole motive which must
determine virtuous actions. He then gives us the
example of a moralist who, outside the metaphysical
considerations by which he is otherwise attracted, is
content with a determinism in which he brings in on
good grounds as the principle of determination, the
tendency to act according to reason.

The affirmation of noumenal liberty neither hinders
nor aids any one. In no way does it hinder those
who have rejected the belief in the noumenon, those
who consider the substance of the metaphysician as
an accursed idol; it in no way assists those who
believe in the existence behind phenomena of a "thing
in itself,'' of which we can know nothing, and which
can only intervene in the positive order by taking a
sensible form. The hypothesis of noumenal liberty
is only definitely used in Kant's doctrine to affirm
the existence of a character which is proper to each
phenomenal being. The being in himself having
freely decided to take this or that character, the

^ Critique of Practical Reason, ^ Ibid,

6

82 LIBERTY AND MORALITY.

sensible man has the corresponding character. To
us who know how many different factors concur in
the formation of our character, the Kantian hypo-
thesis is hardly anything but a confession of psycho-
logical and sociological ignorance: the philosopher
of Koenigsberg himself, ignoring the laws of in-
dividual and social heredity, and of solidarity in time
and space, thought he was laying down the really
primal term when he chose the individual character.

44. The Origin of Character.

Can it be said that this was a total mistake ? We
do not know the factors of our principal tendencies
and principal habits; but will not one point always
remain in obscurity — the radical origin of our ego ?

At what moment do we begin a distinct existence ?

If we admit that the first moment is the dividing
up, the bipartition, for instance, of a cell till then
single, from that moment the being has its own
peculiar orientation, which differs very little it may
be from the orientation of the neighbouring cell; it
manifests attractions and repulsions which are not
those of the relatively simple beings which surround
it. It has already its own character, which will exer-
cise an influence on its own evolution, which is already
the " directing idea of the organism " of which Claude
Bernard speaks. External stimuli will no doubt
provoke reactions which, as they become habitual,
will give rise to tendencies, or at least to acquired
appetitions and repulsions, which will combine with
each other and with fresh appetitions and primitive
repulsions to constitute a more and more complex
character; but every reaction of a given subject is a

THE ORIGIN OF CHARACTER. 83

function of that subject, and bears the mark of the
peculiar nature of that subject; so that to discover the
external causes of such and such a character does not
dispense with the necessity of discovering the matter
on which these causes are exercised. It is this
primal matter which may be considered as a
radical irreducible fact. For to say that an or-
ganised being has had as its origin the bipartition
of a cell does not yet suffice as the full reason of its
appearance in nature. Was the mother-cell a simple
unity? Did it not comprise under its envelope
different elements or groups of elements already
orientated in a different manner? And who can
ever tell us the origin of the natural elements?

If we got so far as to show how nature forms with
inorganic elements the simplest organic compounds,
if we were to discover in physico-chemical combina-
tions the principle of life, of biological and psycho-
logical organisations, we could then claim to give
a reason for the characteristic appetition of this or
that embryo, from the number and the disposition of
its molecules and atoms; and we could then go back
to the source of the radical diversity of characters.
But the distinction between the organic and the in-
organic ever tends to be effaced, not so much by the
reduction of properties vital to the mechanism, as by
the identification of chemical affinities with vital
properties; the domain of life seems to be as wide as
the domain of nature. " Life," says Claude Ber-
nard,^ "is creation. . . . The organising synthesis
remains internal and silent. . . . Vital destruction
is only comparable to a large number of physico-
chemical affinities of decomposition and subdivision."

^ Le^'ons sur ies phinomlnes de la vie, pp. 39, 40.

84 LIBERTY AND MORALITY.

Would not therefore the hypothesis be too bold were
we to assume the reduction of living organism to even
a considerable number of physico-chemical pheno-
mena, such at least as those we are familiar with ?

45. Science, Conscience, and Liberty.

The first principle of each individual character
therefore remains mysterious. Is that a sufficient
reason for supposing it is an act of liberty? The
imagination of the metaphysicians could rigorously
lead up to the conception of a soul penetrating the
mother-cell, we know not how, to determine its bio-
logical development in a determinate direction; but
such a supposition without a basis would be value-
less and unworthy of belief. However, a mind, an
already complex consciousness, only appears to us
susceptible of free will, if we understand by liberty
not the simple power of deviation,^ which Epicurus
recognised in atoms, but the power of choosing after
deliberation, and of making a choice dictated by
reason.

The affirmation of free will is therefore rather in
conflict than in harmony with the data of science.
Our ignorance of the first commencement of every
individual existence leaves no room for the supposi-
tion of a kind of primitive "clinamen," a blind
determination, without reason or moral value.

It is true that certain contemporary thinkers have
seemed to give to liberty, and therefore to the dignity
of the free being, a place apart among psychological
facts, by asserting liberty to be "an immediate

^ Lucretius, ii. 292. — Tr*

SCIENCE, CONSCIENCE, AND LIBERTY. 85

datum of the consciousness."^ They have thus
revived and remarkably strengthened the old spiritual-
istic thesis of liberty affirmed by the witness of
that inner sense, to which, unfortunately, we cannot
attach much importance, for it hides from us most
psychic facts, and only lets us see most other facts
confusedly, whatever progress introspection may
have made. They have carried analysis as far as
possible, in order to destroy the illusion that the first
observation of ourselves creates, by making us con-
ceive of our states of consciousness as juxtaposed,
and of the elements of these states as independent
of one another, acting one on the other just like
weights, or any other mechanical forces. The thesis
of determinism has thus been refuted by a searching
study of ourselves. You have only to know yourself
well, they tell us, to see your liberty. Nothing could
prove it more clearly than the affirmation of a philo-
sophical conscience, of a critical spirit which has
reached a very high degree in the power of analysis,
discovering in the continuity of its ego and of its
psychical future an obstacle impassable by all
determinism.

But the datum of the consciousness is a simple
negation. Let us admit that we have proved that
the determinism of psychic facts, such as they are
usually conceived, does not exist. It is not estab-
hshed, inasmuch as each being from his birth to his
death is endowed with an autonomy such that his
liberty is inviolable and his moral dignity incom-
parable to any other known value. Once more in
this interminable dispute between the partisans and

* Of. Les donnies immediates de la conscience, a thesis by M. Bergsen,
an eminent professor at the College de France. Alcan, 1889.

86 LIBERTY AND MORALITY.

the adversaries of liberty, the partisans have shown
the futility of certain arguments brought forward by
their adversaries ; but the discussion is far from
being closed, and it would be childish to proclaim
metaphysic liberty as an indisputable and funda-
mental fact.

46. Belief and Liberty.

" It is clear," says M. Renouvier, speaking of the
thesis of real liberty, " that I ought only to seek for
its acceptation by belief and by free belief. I notice
that the postulate (of liberty) arising out of and not
preceding morality, is essentially concerned with
other doctrines than pure morality. . . This postulate is
not demanded for the existence of morality, . . What is
indispensable to morality is not a postulate, it is a
fact, the fact of liberty that is apparent and practically
believed, and from which no one can escape who
deliberates and resolves on an act, comparing dif-
ferent possibilities in relation to the good, possibilities
equally practicable according to his practical judg-
ment, none of which is presented to him beforehand
as obligatory."

M. Fouill6e goes farther in the same direction. He
is content with the illusion of liberty. He believes
that although real liberty may fail us, the idee-force
of liberty, however little may be its objective value,
will render us the greatest services from the moral
point of view.

^ An idea-force is the surplus force added to an idea by the factor
of its reflection in consciousness. Cf. Fouillee, V Evoiutionistne des
Idies-Forcesy Intro, iv., *' Importance de la question des Id^es-Forces
en Morale," pp. Ixvii-xciv. — Tr.

BELIEF AND LIBERTY. 87

Thus the question is set in fresh terms. Is the
idea of liberty necessary to moral action ? This
idea cannot be that of an indifferent liberty,
leaving to the will (a mysterious entity) the right
of pronouncing arbitrarily, and, if necessary, in
conflict with the conclusions of reason, with pure
indifference to all ends and feelings.^ Such a liberty
would only be favourable to absurdity; for the char-
acteristic of good sense and judgment is that it gives
the reasons of things, facts, and acts. The free man
par excellence would be the man who could give the
reason of none of his voluntary determinations, who
would never know why he acts, and who, like certain
insane people, persecuted or impulsive, would only
feel the effects of a force which'urges him, leads him,
and decides in him and for him, without his really
taking any part in the decision. If men had ever
for the most part the conviction that they were them-
selves the possessors of a faculty freed from all
rational control, making all deliberation and all
reasoning useless, would not the result be horrible,
and should we not see a kind of fatalism arise, based
on the belief in a Fatum immanent in the individual,
replacing the "destiny" of days gone by, which at
any rate demanded a universe and took the place
of cosmic law ?

The idea of liberty therefore should be reconciled
with the idea of determinism ; but then, it may be

* ** Motifs et mobiles." The motifs are ideas influencing the volition
— are intellectual. Thus a motif \% initiation of action by ideas or ends
in view. The mobiles are sentiments, passions, etc., influencing the
volition — /.^., are emotional. Thus a mobile is initiation of action by
feeling. It will be seen that it is difficult to find simple words which
will adequately express the meaning of motifs and mobiles, — Tr.

88 LIBERTY AND MORALITY.

that of a determination by oneself opposed to that of
a determination by a power outside oneself, of an
internal opposed to an external causality. The idea
of a free man is that of an agent who is really an
agent instead of being simply an intermediary for
the transmission of movements. A billiard ball is
not considered free because it receives the external
impulse which in its turn it transmits; but some
ordinary minds consider that animals are free (the
surest indication of this belief is that, as a rule,
they impute to animals misconduct, and strike them
and ill-treat them as if they were responsible
beings capable of improvement), because an animal
appears as a veritable point of departure of move-
ment, as a prime motor, capable of giving rise, to
use M. Renouvier's expression, to a really first
beginning.

Those thinkers who refuse liberty to the animal
grant it spontaneity, and reserve the name of liberty
for the reasonable spontaneity of man. But to them
a mysterious power of initiative remains the essential
thing in their conception of free will. Now psycho-
logy, by revealing, as I think I have shown above,
the mechanism of deliberation and choice; the
subordination of attention, the most important phe-
nomenon of all in voluntary choice, to the sensible
appearance of different and more and more powerful
tendencies; the formation of tendencies and their
close independence with respect to the environment,
to heredity, and to physico-chemical and biological
phenomena; will not psychology, I say, faithful to
the scientific spirit, crush the belief in this power of
initiative, in this idea of liberty, and crush it the
more easily the more illusory it is ?

THE PERSON, THE REAL AGENT. 89

It may be objected that the conscience will always
protest against scientific affirmation, and \^ill hold
by the apparent fact of liberty. That is as if we
were to say that the conscience will always protest
against such a scientific assertion as that the earth
moves round the sun, because the sensible fact is the
rotation of the sun round the earth. The most
ignorant man in the civilised nations of our time
knows perfectly well that it is the earth that turns,
and if he had in some action to take account of the
relations of the earth and the sun, he would rather
trust the scientific assertion than the sensible datum^

We have seen that although science has not yet
succeeded in proving the absolute determinism of
the facts of consciousness, it hardly leaves any place
for an original contingency. Let us then be frank
enough to say, to teach, and to prove, that liberty,
as it is too often conceived, is an illusion due, as
Spinoza foresaw, to ignorance of most of the deter-
mining causes of our decisions.

We do not believe in the virtue of illusorj' ideas ;
the power of an illusion can in every case be only of
short duration ; we cannot base morality on, or to
say the least support it by, a so-called fact which has
only to be applied to secure its disappearance, in a
great measure at least, because it includes so large
a share of error.

47. The Person, the Real Agent,

Moreover, truth will not have the disastrous con-
sequences that are imagined. Determinism, properly
understood, does not compel us to see in the moral
agent a simple instrument, or a simple means of

go LIBERTY AND MORALITY.

transition for an impulse which has come from else-
where. Every organised being has its form, which
is irreducible to another form, and which has at least
as much importance as its substance. Individual
properties appear with the appearance of life, and
so do action and reaction according to the nature
peculiar to each individual.

We must also avoid an error that is common
enough, although it is frequently pointed out : that
which is committed whenever we consider the effect
as contained in the cause. To positive science as
well as to the phenomenist philosophy, cause is only
the antecedent which by its presence or by its relative
position determines in a subject certain conse-
quences, impels a subject which is capable of action
to certain well-determined actions, — actions which
cannot fail to be identically reproduced under the same
circumstances.

Now, when it is a question of a living being which
is continually changing, the effect on it of a constant
cause is also changing, and in the proportion in
which the total change affects the relation origin-
ally existing between the cause and the part or
function of the subject specially interested. We see,
therefore, that in a living being the same causes run
a considerable risk of not producing the same effects
at different times. A remedy taken now cannot have
exactly the same effect as if it had been taken some
week ago ; a fortiori, the same object may very well
fail to produce on me to-morrow the same explosion
of anger which it determines to-day. I am the imme-
diate cause, in the scientific and philosophical sense
of the word, of this change of causal relation ; this is
because my ego is changing, and it is because it

THE PERSON, THE REAL AGENT. QI

is following out its own peculiar evolution that the
effect will not be produced.

The living being, especially the reasonable being
who reflects, and whose reflection still more compli-
cates the psychical processes by introducing into
them a wider share of personal influences, rightly
therefore considers himself as an agent, as a cause
endowed with a peculiar efficacy; he rightly says
that he is not determined to act as he does only by
what is external, that he is not compelled by external
forces; that he is a bundle, a system of relatively
independent forces. He claims that he is competent
to choose between possibilities the field of which is
circumscribed by external necessities; and in fact,
a certain number of actions remain possible until
the moment when deliberation, attaining its " term,"
makes one of them necessary. No doubt the factors
of this deliberation are sentiments and tendencies;
but they are his sentiments and his tendencies;
they are he in short, for he is nothing more than his
psychic states.

Differences of opinion on liberty spring in most
cases from the vicious conception of the ego, which
is supposed to be something outside the ends and
feelings which then seem to determine it. But these
tendencies, these representations linked by reason-
ings, which are the ends and motives ^ of our actions,
these are we, our ego, progressively determining
itself.

To sum up, although the evolution of the acting
agent, the ego, is, if not altogether, at least in a great
measure, determined by external causes, yet the ego is
the immediate cause of its voluntary decisions by the

^ Vide footnote, p. 87.

92 LIBERTY AND MORALITY.

personal and original future which is quite its own,
and quite irreducible to any other phenomena of
nature. It is therefore the origin of a new causal
series ; if we cannot give from other sources the why of
its nature, at least we can give the why of its acts.
This has been done rather than that because I was
the agent and no one else. Could I prevent myself
from doing that ? The question is the same as if I
were asked if I could not be what I was, or become
other than I was. But I needed an anterior or
present motive to be other than I am, a cause of
modification in my future. If it is not found in me,
if it did not depend on me at the instant of its
birth, if it could not depend on me until the external
aroused it in my mind, I have been what I could be
and that differs from what I might be now. I could
not therefore say why my deliberation is not further
prolonged ; the fact is that it has been checked at
a certain point, because I have not pursued my
researches farther, or in another direction.

48. Conclusion.

Ethics must, therefore, be content with regarding
the being as a real moral agent, and must, therefore,
set itself to procure for men at the moment they are about
to take a decision, as many ends and feelings as possible,
so as to make deliberation as enlightened as possible.

There are social means of reinforcing useful
stimuli, of diminishing the influence that harmful
stimuli have upon a mind of attracting or dis-
tracting the attention; there is an individual and
collective discipline which constitutes the moral
education of the child and of the adult, and which
issues in deliberations which are more and more

CONCLUSION. 93

fruitful in happy choice. To prepare, from the
tenderest childhood, the ego to intervene as
representing reason in the breast of nature, is to
prepare man for freedom with respect to the
individual passions, for obedience to a common
law, and for a rational rule of conduct ; and moral
liberty consists in such a freedom and in such an
obedience.

The being which would have been only able to obey
its passions is thus led to obey the rational law. Its
cause is found in the nature of the man who allows,
as we have seen, a tendency to act in a systematic
manner, to think according to reason,^ and to give
a reason for acts in their conformity to a law.
This tendency may be weak or strong, its influence
may be slight or sovereign. The desire to strengthen
it has always been the intelligible choice of a certain
number of individuals, of moralists; and they are
the cause, by the action they have exercised on their
fellows, of its power in humanity, of the place that
is made for it in education, and therefore of the
r6le it plays in the intelligible choice made by moral
beings^ (although each of these beings may be the
real cause of his choice). And therefore morality,
far from being useless, if the idea of liberty does not
exist as most moralists and philosophers have con-
ceived it, becomes, on the contrary, more and more
useful in proportion as men take more and more
account of the determinism of their actions, and of

^ Thus moral liberty appears as of psycho-sociological origin^ an
aspect under which it has never yet been presented. The nearest
approach to such a conception would be the idee-force of M. Fouillee ;
but it must not be forgotten that it is definitively but the illusion of
liberty, as long as the social evolution which we here indicate id real,
and has a cause in the psychological nature of man.

94 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

the necessity of each becoming an **ego" more
complex, more rich in tendencies, and, in particular,
more led to act rationally.

The moral agent only appears to us at his best
when under the dominion of its characteristic
tendencies. These are, therefore, the tendencies
which we must study, co-ordinate, and arrange in
a hierarchy, in order to make a synthetic unity of
the moral ego.

III.
The Moral Tendencies.

49. Different Tendencies, Different Doctrines.

As we have already seen, the problem which we have
to solve is this : — What is the tendency or system of
tendencies which is the best fitted to characterise a
reasonable being, determined to action by a moral
will ? There are scarcely any tendencies which have
not in turn been adopted by moralists as capable of
giving rise to good conduct; the grossest and the
most refined pleasures, those of the senses as well
as of the aesthetic taste and of the " intellect," have
been recommended to virtuous man; the egoistic
tendencies as well as the altruistic, the tendency to
inaction as well as the tendency to effort, have been
equally extolled. In general, an incomplete view of
the exigencies of human nature, and ignorance or
contempt for some of the normal tendencies of man,
have been the cause of the adoption of moral theories
which are unsatisfactory when we consider their
remoteness from psycho-sociological reality.

NATURALISM. 95

50. Naturalism,

Because to live according to nature seems normal
to most men, some writers, for instance, after an
imperfect enumeration of the various forms of life
according to nature, impose on man as directing
tendencies of conduct the same tendencies which
determine the course of animal existence.

Epicurus and Spencer agree in asserting that the
search for pleasure being common to all natural
beings, this search must be the motive of human
actions.* Admitting that the desire of enjoyment is
the predominant desire in most men, it would not
necessarily follow that it remains the predominant
desire of all reasonable beings, and a fortiori^ if it is
merely ascertained that it is a general appetition in
the animal series. No doubt we cannot form a great
gulf between the human and other living species ; we
can believe in the continuity of universal evolution,
and in particular of animal evolution, and we ought
to admit it more and more as a scientific fact. We
therefore are free from the prejudice which makes
certain moralists say that it is exactly because such
and such a mode of action is animal, that man ought
to regard it as unworthy of him, and rather adopt
the contrary mode of action; such a prejudice is
too obviously the mark of the metaphysical mind
which imagines the distinction and opposition
between matter, "flesh," and "spirit."

* Vide Spencer, TAe Data of Ethics^ chap. iii. p. 46 (1879):
"Pleasure somewhere, at some time, to some being or beings, is an
inexpugnable element of the conception. It is as much a necessary
form of moral intuition as space is a necessary form of intellectual
intuition."— Tr.

96 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

But, to refuse to see in man any new tendency
superior to those experienced by animals, is also
the denial of a scientific fact — viz., the progressive
perfection of the animal species. The same
difficulty which makes it so hard for psychologists
to agree on the nature of rational mental activity,
easily leads moralists to exaggerate two contrary
tendencies, the tendency to assimilate completely
human to animal conduct, and the tendency to
draw a profound distinction between them. So that
the general solution, which, without disposing of
the particular questions, makes them more easily
approached, should be the same.

Human reason does not differ fundamentally from
. animal intelligence; it is only a perfected form of
it. While the animal associates images, man in
his judgments takes consciousness of his power
of association, and affirms the objective value
(attributed spontaneously by the animal to its
representative synthesis, itself spontaneous) of the
reflective synthesis he effects. While the animal
is content with practical inferences which make him
avoid a stick like that with which he has been beaten
and a fire like the fire which has burned him, man,
by reflection on his mental operations, analyses them,
distinguishes between their different stages in order
to place them side by side after having separated
them and reasoned on them. While the animal is
capable of classing objects from the point of view of
their utility or its own particular likings, man classes
them according to the most general and most dis-
interested tendencies from the universal point of
view. He thus reaches the idea of necessity and
law, and then, thanks to science, he moves by rapid

NATURALISM. 97

steps from the lower stage, which was his point
of departure, and which remains the last term of
the mental evolution of animals.^ It is, therefore,
reflection, the higher degree of attention paid
by a being to himself, which constitutes, from
the speculative point of view, the superiority of
man. This superiority involves a greater elevation
of sentiment, the appearance of aesthetic, religious,
intellectual, and social tendencies, of which only the
veriest rudiments are to be seen in the mind of beasts.
But just as the human use of reason is a con-
tinuation of animal intelligence, and constitutes an
efflorescence of nature from the intellectual point
of view, so the disinterested, aesthetic, religious
sentiments, etc., which are the glory of humanity,
are not external to nature, are not in opposition to
the appetites and tendencies of animals, but rather
constitute their legitimate end.

Pleasure results from the gratification of a tend-
ency, on condition that the lack of gratification
of other tendencies does not involve keener dis-
comfort. The animal experiences pleasure in satisfy-
ing his instinctive activity without a check; as we
have seen, it has an appetite, or a small number of
predominant appetites, which constitute the ordinary
source of its pleasures and pains. In man this is far
from being the case; instinctive activity is almost
evanescent; the instinct of preservation and the
sexual instinct have lost most of their blind and
automatic although well-defined characters of
activity; and the most diverse tendencies may
acquire preponderance according to the individual,

^ Cf. Romanes, Mental Evolution in Animals and Mental Evolution
in Man,

7

98 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

the temperament, and the environment. Thus we
see in certain men the most delicate sensibility
destroyed, or at any rate lessened, by the grossest
pleasures, and even this refined sensibility becomes
the lot of the few. Some find their greatest pleasure
in the exercise of power, in the wielding of authority,
and others in a state of tranquillity which is not
untainted by servility; others in self-renunciation,
charity, love; and others, again, in perpetual amuse-
ment. When it is claimed that a man ought to seek
his pleasures like the animal, we forget the differ-
ence that a higher degree of evolution has effected
between the two modes of activity — animal pursuit
and human conduct.

51. Hedonism}

The precept, "Seek your pleasures," may be
used in a twofold sense. The first, " Seek each
the pleasure that gives you the activity most
in conformity with your predominant tendency,"
furnishes us with a precept of moral anomia, of
social anarchy, and brings us directly to a type of
conduct very different to that of the brute; for the
brute at least subordinates his different interests to
the vital interest safeguarded by his instinct; while
the man who does not conceive a hierarchy of
pleasures, a scale of values, and a scale of interests,
is capable of subordinating his vital interests to
harmful pleasures.

* On this section the following may be read with advantage ^ —
Lecky, History of European Morals (1890), vol. i. chap. i. ; Bain,
Mental and Moral Science^ Book IV. , chap. iv. ; The Emotions and
the Will, chap, viii., "The Will"; Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics^
chap, vi.; Sorley, Ethics of Naturalism ^ chap. vii.

HEDONISM. 99

But if we give to the precept the second mean-
ing that it may have, " Seek the pleasure that
is most in conformity with human nature,"
from that moment we formulate a command
which requires numerous commentaries, which can
only be carried out at the cost of considerable
reflection, which implies lofty ideas, and in the
front rank of those ideas, the idea of duty. For
to command a man to seek that mode^of activity
which pleases him best, is scarcely to command, in
the proper sense of the word. At most it is to
approve of his giving himself up to moral anarchy,
to encourage him to persevere in a method of con-
duct which it is far too easy for him to adopt. But
to command him to seek the pleasure which is most
in conformity with human nature, is to oppose to the
choice to which his individual character would have
led him, the choice that every reasonable being ought
to make in order to experience a pleasure which every
man should endeavour to experience in order to be
a man in the fullest sense of the word.

And what in the opinion of the various moralists
is this pleasure? Have they thoroughly analysed
human nature ? have they not neglected one of the
important indications of psychology and sociology
by calling pleasure supreme ? That is the question
which we must now ask ourselves. It is true that we
cannot a priori refuse to pleasure a place in ethics.
Pleasure is one of the most important psychical
phenomena; and a morality which does not take
pleasure into account is purely theoretical and use-
less; as we have seen, concrete beings are not moved
by abstract ideas, but by the arousing of tendencies,
and every tendency issues in either pleasure or

100 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

pain. Now pain determines movements of repulsion
or aversion; pleasure determines movements of
attraction, appetitions which keep alive the primi-
tive tendency and develop it instead of destroying
it. For a precept to act on man, not only must it
correspond to a tendency, but this tendency must
also be strong enough to procure pleasure, a pleasure
as far as possible without pain, which demands no
too painful a sacrifice, or which procures an intense
pleasure by virtue of the sacrifice.^

But the tendency to experience pleasure and to
avoid pain is not the first of all, either in the psycho-
genetic order, or in the order of relative importance.
In fact the tendency manifested by the new-born
child, which is met hardly anywhere else but in the
lower stages of idiocy,^ and which subsists to the last
in the insane, is the tendency to eat whatever comes
within reach (even things that are disgusting, as
do idiots and certain classes of the insane, without
appearing to experience either pleasure or pain,
except perhaps at the moment when the stomach
is replete).^ This instinct is the first specific phase
of the instinct of preservation, an instinct which
later arouses tendencies of appetition or repulsion
when agreeable and painful emotions are sufficiently
differentiated and have become the signs either of the
useful or the good, or of the harmful or the bad.

Besides, the tendency to seek pleasure enters into
conflict at a later stage with the instinct of preserva-

1 Cf. J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism (1891), p. 23.— Tr.

2 We do not say in the "lowest" stage, because certain idiots have
not even the instinct of preservation under the form of the instinct of
nutrition.

8 Cf. Mercier, Sanity and Insanity^ pp. 287 et seq,\ Ribot, The
Psychology of the Emotions^ pp. 200 et se(j. ^Tk.

EPICUREANISM. 101

tion with which at first it is intimately allied. This
is because the agreeable emotions are associated with
numerous modes of activity, more or less remote
from the modes adapted simply to the preservation
of existence, and because from the tendency to pre-
servation inevitably springs the tendency to develop-
ment, which gives rise to innovations, some useful
and some harmful ; and it is found that certain harm-
ful innovations have, nevertheless, been agreeable,
because pleasure is not a sign invented by nature to
warn man of what constitutes his good; because
pleasure is the psychical result of biological modi-
fications, multiple reflexes, and other organic phe-
nomena that may be determined by a poison as
well as by a healthy beverage, and by morbid as
well as by moral activity.

52. Epicureanism}

Epicurus seems to have understood this, for he
has divided desires into three classes — (i) Natural
and necessary desires; (2) desires which are only
natural; and (3) desires neither natural nor neces-
sary — and only conceded the satisfaction of natural
and necessary desires, and therefore of those which
are the strongest and most capable of procuring
pleasure without too keen an accompanying dis-
comfort. But is his enumeration of the natural
and necessary desires complete ?

It has been said that the morality of this philo-
sopher issues in the morality of "dry bread." It
is, in fact, essentially negative. Ever>' pleasure

* Diog. Laert., x. 149. Cf. Guyau, La Morale tT &picure^ chap, iv.,
PP 45-57.— Tr.

102 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

resulting from action must be avoided as uncertain,
unstable, and likely to produce in the future more
pain than pleasure. The wise man must, therefore,
content himself with the restful pleasure which con-
sists in a natural tendency to satisfy his most press-
ing needs, those of food: "He who lives on dry
bread and water need envy Jupiter in nothing."^
Throughout the doctrine of Epicurus there are
certain signs of a positive conception of human
happiness. First, there is the distinction between
corporeal pleasures, which are momentary, and the
pleasures of the mind, which are accumulative, and
perpetuated by foresight and memory.^ No doubt
the pleasure of the soul consists in prevision and
recollection of the apathy induced by the gratifica-
tion of the natural and necessary desires of the body;
but it would be remarkable if a Greek, seeing to how
large a degree his tendencies were speculative, had
not conceived beyond the corporeal apathy a mental
ataraxia''* permitting some of the pleasures of the
intellect. We find an explicit trace of this concep-
tion in the Epicurean theology, in which we see the
gods who are only superior men placed in the " inter-
worlds" there to live happily, needing neither sleep
nor food, because they taste the charms of conversation
and of the loftiest intellectual life. For they are beau-
tiful and reasonable; they enjoy that intellect which,
as Epicurus himself asserts, is the greatest good.*

Whatever view we may take on this particular
point, there is no doubt that the Epicurean con-

^ Cf. Diog. Laert., xi. pp. 130-46.

2 op, cit,, p. 137.

^ Ribot, The Psychology of the Emotions^ p. 360. — Tr.

* Op, cit,, p. 131.

UTILITARIANISM. I03

ception of supreme pleasure is incomplete, and in-
adequate to the requirements of human nature.
Even admitting that Epicurus has prescribed the
search for pleasure which results in the free exercise
of the intellect, we must not forget that he has
formally banished the pleasures of social and family
life, and ipso facto all the gratification which may
result from disinterested intercourse with other men,
with art, and with politics. He has impaired human
existence, deprived it of most of its attractions, and
has reduced to a minimum its requirements. Instead
of trying to subordinate the different desires to one
another, he has suppressed nearly all of them, only
retaining that without which the most restricted
human life would be almost inconceivable — the desire
of satisfying hunger. He has not even endeavoured
to give to the sexual instinct, powerful as it is, and
prompt as it is in its vengeance on those who abuse
it, the satisfaction that is its due.

To sum up, the morality of Epicurus is the
apotheosis of idleness, of that moral inertia which
tends to realise an unnatural physical inertia. To
criticise it from the psychological point of view, it
appears to be the result of a huge blunder, or at
least of a pathological conception of human nature.
Asceticism alone has gone further in this direction
than Epicureanism.

53. Utilitarianism.

The practical mind of the English philosophers
has led them to reject the ascetic^ and to retain the
utilitarian principle of Epicurus. They did not wish

3 Bentham, Theory of Legislation^ chap. ii. — Tr.

104 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

to deprive themselves of the varied pleasures of
human life, but they endeavoured to choose the
pleasures which would bring to them after a longer
or shorter interval happiness of the most lasting and
most durable character.

This was the reason of the "arithmetic of
pleasure," heralded by Bentham,^ careful, like his
compatriot Priestley, of "the greatest happiness of
the greatest number." Although they dwelt but
little on human solidarity, the fact of a profound
community of interests was none the less accepted
at the end of the eighteenth century, and even at
that time there was no endeavour to separate indi-
vidual from collective well-being. Besides, sympathy
appeared, if not to all as a factor of morality, at least
in general as a natural phenomenon which must be
taken into account; brutal egoism seemed clumsy
even to individuals who saw in the sacrifice of
certain petty private satisfactions to the common
benefit a skilful operation destined to procure for
the agent many more advantages than those he
sacrifices.

Morality therefore became an affair of calculation
and intelligent choice of the acts most suited to
safeguard private and collective interests, as inti-
mately connected as possible. What reproach could
be laid to the charge of a morality which took into
account all human interests, from economic interests
to aesthetic, and which endeavoured to induce men
to adopt every mode of activity which would lead to
the most complete satisfaction of our tendencies
both as individuals and as social beings? Could

^ "On Bentham and Epicurus," vide Guyau, La Morale Anglaise
Contemporainey chap, i., p. 13. — Tr.

INTEREST AND DESIRE. I05

it be reproached with not proving the necessity of
the conduct it commended ? It would answer tri-
umphantly, though indirectly, by pointing to the
number of attractions which it presented to the
sensible being, the power that is conferred upon it
by the promises of happiness that it could make
and fulfil; by affirming that there is no moral law
in the sense of the word law in general — that is to
say, so far as its necessary and inevitable relation
is concerned; that there are moral precepts the
value, and a fortiori the necessity, of which can
always be contested; but that in the hierarchy of
moral precepts the highest place is occupied by the
most efficacious. And not one of them would be
more efficacious than that which would correspond
to every human tendency, which would clash with
none, and which could, if followed up, give com-
plete happiness or at least the greatest happiness
possible.

We cannot, therefore, discredit a moral theory
which would satisfy all interests and prescribe what
is useful to them as a full safeguard. But it should
be preceded by another theory, having as its object
the reduction of the diversity of human interests to
the unity of a system, for we know by experience
that they can never be reconciled as long as they
are in isolation.

54. Interest and Desire.

If you separate interest from desire, you may no
doubt assert that my interest, properly understood,
is identical with yours. But from my point of view
your claim cannot be allowed, for my interest is

I06 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

what is good for me, and that alone appears to me
good which is in conformity with my desire. Modify
my desires, change my tendencies, and prove to me
that they are bad. If you succeed in convincing me,
and if we go so far as to have the same or recon-
cilable desires, we shall have the same interests, or
interests which are either complementary or in
harmony. But to modify my tendencies being pre-
cisely the immediate object of morality, you will
be arguing in a vicious circle if you claim to base
your moral theory on the postulate of the funda-
mental harmony of interests, or of their natural
subordination.

So far as the reasonable will, in harmony with
science, does not intervene to establish in the most
objective possible manner a scale of values, a hier-
archy of ends, such that an end becomes a mean
for a higher end, useful in its turn for the realisation
of a still higher end; so far as one is not brought
in consequence to the highest psychological and
sociological considerations, the utilitarian formulae
remain with no wider scope than that of a general
precept which meets with too little opposition to
remain the sole precept of morality. "Do what
is useful for the realisation of the good" is to say
"He who wants the ends wants the means," and
that is saying nothing at all.

55. Egoism.

In fact, the utilitarian doctrine only takes a par-
ticular aspect when it i3 opposed to the morality of
disinterestedness, of generosity, and of the love of

EGOISM, 107

others, and becomes clearly the morality of an indi-
vidual or collective egoism.^

The utilitarian, in the true sense of the word, does
nothing from aesthetic or intellectual interest, nothing
from devotion to an ideal out of which he does not
know whether or not he can extract some advantage
or pleasure. The type of the utilitarian is the busi-
ness man, the Englishman on whose lips is always
the famous word "business," and who in matters
of love, or religion, or aesthetics, never forgets his
business.

It is not long before such a man is inconsequent with
himself, just as the miser who from the preliminary
search for gold as a means of procuring for himself
pleasure or happiness, is not long before he takes the
means for the end, and the possession of gold as the
principal object of his activity. John Stuart Mill
has admirably shown how, as an effect of the associa-
tion of ideas, the means so closely associate them-
selves with the end that they become the unique
term close behind which the term that is passed
disappears in the distance.^ (In this way also is
explained man's search for virtue and moral value.)

The horizon of the utilitarian then becomes more

^ ** I think," says M. Renouvier {Science de la Morale^ vol. i. p. 194),
** that there is no abuse of ordinary language in using the word interest
to indicate the group of human ends which comprises three forms of
good or elements of happiness: (i) those which directly concern the
observation of the individual ; (2) those which concern his powers of
the material or impulsive order when his passions have only himself
as their end ; (3) his means or his accumulative power of preserva-
tion and enjoyment. . . . Utility like interest has a collective direction,
but does not cease to be applied to the individual and his material
good in the final analysis."

2 Mill's Utilitarianism^ 1891, pp. 54 et seq, ; Sorley, Ethics of
Naturalism^ pp. 134 et seq. — Tr.

I08 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

and more restricted. First of all desirous to procure
for himself the means that are useful to the loftiest
satisfactions, whether of an intellectual, aesthetic,
or social order, he little by little comes to search
for the means that are useful to the satisfaction of
appetites which are common to man and to the
animal.

In vain was John Stuart Mill's famous declara-
tion:^ "I would rather be a discontented Socrates
than a satisfied pig ; " most of his disciples were not
long before they considered Socrates as a dreamer, a
Utopian, a man who did not know how to conduct
his business, and preferred to that unfortunate sage
the happy merchant who, without . any elevation of
mind or heart, succeeds in his enterprises, enriches
himself, and assures for himself an existence of
gaiety and good living.

Such utilitarians give us an excellent instance of
the theoretical insufficiency of utilitarianism; they
show the practical powerlessness of a doctrine,
definitively directed, but incapable of being rigor-
ously systematic. The formula, " the greatest
happiness of the greatest number," will be an
empty formula as long as the happiness that is
sought for is not better defined. The worst of
tyrants will pretend that he is causing the happiness
of the greatest number of his subjects by putting to
death, exiling, or imprisoning all those who do not
think as he does. The most anarchist of theorists
may on his side claim to make people happy by
allowing each to act according to his own sweet will.

^ ** It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied ;
better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." Utilitarianism,
p. 14.— Tr.

THE COLLECTIVE INTEREST. I09

56. The Collective Interest.

The sacrifice of individual to collective interest
can only be prescribed when the collective interest
is well defined. Now, collective interest is either, as
some of the best thinkers conceive it, in conflict with
the opinions of the masses, or in conformity with the
aspirations of the greatest number. In the first case
we may be well assured that the masses will be
ignorant of those interests that some assert are
veritably theirs, and these worthy souls will sacrifice
themselves to no purpose without finding any other
satisfaction than that of duty accomplished — viz., the
satisfaction of the conscience. In the second case
they will give way to the impulse of the masses and
the pressure of the mob, rather than act morally.
They will resign themselves " to a large number of
practices which will not be less obligatory than
others, without, however, its being possible to see
what services they are rendering to the com-
munity."^

" For collective utility to be the principle of moral
action, it must be in niost cases the object of a fairly
clear representation before it can determine the con-
duct. Now utilitarian calculations, even if exact, are
combinations of ideas which are too subtle to act
much on the will, . . . since the interest is not
immediate and perceptible, it is too feebly conceived
to give an impulse to activity."^

" And further, nothing is so obscure as these
questions of utility. However slight may be the

^ Durkheim, Division du Travail social ^ p. 12.

2 We must not forget, in fact, that interest from the psychological
point of view is inseparable from tendency, and that the keenest tend-
ency accompanies the clearest and most concrete representations.

no THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

complexity of the situation, the individual no longer
sees clearly where his own interest lies. . . . But
the evidence is still more difficult to obtain when it
is the interest, not of an individual, but of a society,
which is at stake. . . . And even if we were to
examine the rules, the social utility of which is
most amply demonstrated, we see that the services
which they render cannot be known in advance."^

So that not only have the commandments of
morality never, as a matter of fact, had " as their
end the interest of society," but it is impossible to
effectively command a man to take as his end
the safeguard of real collective interests, when he
is incapable of safeguarding and of recognising his
real personal interests. And if instead of real
interests we simply speak of the ends in which
an individual is interested because of his tendencies,
there is no doubt that a being without moral culture,
and without a preliminary idea of duty, will
spontaneously interest himself more in what corre-
sponds to his strongest tendencies — i.e., his nearest
and most personal ends. Remote and imperfect
ends, such as the well-being of society in a thousand
years' time, will leave him indifferent.

It is true that it is objected that, as a matter of
fact, there is no conflict possible between the search
for real individual happiness and that of the happi-
ness of the greatest number; so that it is not at all
necessary for the individual to deliberately propose
to himself collective happiness as his end. " But to
speak only of actions done from the motive of duty,
and in direct obedience to principle : it is," says J. S.
Mill,^ " a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of

* Durkheim, idid,, p. 14. ^ Utilitarianism ^ p. 26.— Tr.

THE COLLECTIVE INTEREST. Ill

thought, to conceive it as implying that people
should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as
the world, or society at large; . . . the thoughts of
the most virtuous man need not on these occasions
travel beyond the particular persons concerned,
except so far as is necessary to assure himself that
in benefiting them he is not violating the rights —
that is, the legitimate and authorised expectations —
of any one else. . . . The occasions on which any
person (except one in a thousand) has it in his power
to do this on an extended scale, in other words to be
a public benefactor, are but exceptional: and on
these occasions alone is he called on to consider
public utility."

So that in all other cases, that is to say in almost
every case, the utilitarian will think, like the wise
Epicurean, of himself, or at most of a small circle of
friends. Provided that he abstains " from whatever
is manifestly pernicious to society," by being useful
to himself he will be working for the common good.
But, then, if his happiness consists in this gratifica-
tion of the commonest and simplest tendencies, and
if only the most foolish things are of interest to him,
and if his t5T)e is generalised in society, shall we not
reach a mode of social existence from which will be
banished, not only every lofty and generous feeling,
but even every cordial understanding ? For nothing
divides men more than low, common, and inevitably
selfish sentiments.

Can one prove this harmony of common and indi-
vidual utility otherwise than by postulating in the
individual great loftiness of thought and relatively dis-
interested tendencies, or, at least, interests which are
outside the sphere of common individual interests ?

112 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

John Stuart Mill seems to count too much on a
moral sense developed and refined among all men.
"Those who are equally acquainted with, and
equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both
[kinds of life], do give a most marked preference to
the manner of existence which employs their higher
faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be
changed into any of the lower animals; ... no per-
son of feeling and conscience would be selfish and
base."i

But these people who are susceptible of healthy
appreciation, and these men of feeling, are rare.
These are not the men who have most need of •
precepts of morality; the elevation of their senti-
ments would almost suffice to make them truly
virtuous. It is the majority of men who lack such
elevation, who are always requiring to be directed,
raised, and brought to the conception of an ideal of
happiness higher than that which they can imagine
by themselves. Their spontaneous search for the
useful is therefore of no moral value; their happiness
is not a moral happiness.

And this is the crowning condemnation of utili-
tarianism ; the system is only good for conspicuously
moral beings.^

57. Intellectual Happiness.

The primordial interest, personal or collective,
seems to be that of self-preservation. But the
tendency of the being to persevere in his being,
which Spinoza proclaimed to be the very essence of

1 Op. cttf p. 12.— Tr. ^ Cf. Mackenzie, op, cit^ pp. 103, 104.

INTELLECTUAL HAPPINESS. II3

all reality, can only issue in immobility and stupor.
Combined with the tendency to change, it gives rise
to a desire of regular development which may be
confounded in many cases with the desire for
happiness.

What is happiness in fact but the persistence of a
desirable state, the prolongation without fatigue of a
pleasure, and therefore of quite a particular pleasure,
since pleasure in general (according to all psycho-
logists, and also for physiological reasons connected
with nervous exhaustion and modifications in the
composition of the blood) is followed by pain, and
transformed more or less promptly into a painful
feeling ? ^ The state of happiness does not admit of
violent emotions or of too keen an excitement. It
is much less compatible with the sensorial stimuli,
with mobility of mind and body, than with the in-
tellectual and contemplative life, or with moderate
activity and the peaceful life. And that is why the
tendency to happiness accommodates itself very read-
ily with tendencies to the intellectual development
and to the exercise of the rational faculties.

The latter tendencies, as we have seen, are human,
and we must not underrate their importance. By
the side of the need of action, which is as animal as
it is human, and which is derived directly from the
necessity to life of development, is the need of think-
ing, reasoning, assigning causes, discovering laws,
understanding and explaining, which is properly
human, and which raises in certain men a devotion
to science, a love of truth, and the intensive culture
of every means adapted to give a satisfactory know-

^ For PleasurC'Pain v. Stout, Manual of Psychology^ pp. 276-283.
— Tr.

8

114 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

ledge of things and of oneself. But it must not
become exclusive.

To my mind, Aristotle, after having laid down the
principles of an entirely theoretical morality, had the
great merit of recognising that this ethic is rather
better for gods than it is for men. " It is not qua
man but qua something divine residing in him "^ that
man is called upon to live the properly intellectual life,
and to enjoy the happiness that follows the contempla-
tion of the intellectual. " That, no doubt, is beyond .
human nature," for man is a composite being, and
has a soul composed not only of intellectual functions
but also of functions that are nutritive, sensitive,
appetitive, and motive.

It is none the less true that to Aristotle the moral
ideal is precisely that activity of the divinity which
experiences no passion and no desire, which has
nothing to will, having nothing to desire, which knows
nothing of the world, and delights itself in eternal
self-contemplation. To propose to man as a distant
end, no doubt, but as the supreme object of the
desire which moves the whole world (the search for
the divine), this purely intellectual perfection, is to
prepare the wise man, who has only a practical
wisdom and " ethical virtue,'' to have no interest in
terrestrial action and to live for pure speculation
alone.

Aristotle himself added to the acute observation
to which we have just referred, a precept that the
mystics will interpret wrongly, although in itself it is
harmless. " One must not, because one is a man,
have, as certain people point out, a taste for human
things, and because one is mortal a taste for mortal
^ Nicomachaean Ethics, Book X., chap. vii. p. io.—Tr.

MYSTICISM. 115

things, but so far as it is possible we must make
ourselves immortal and do all we can to live in
accordance with the noblest part of our being." ^
Now to Aristotle to make oneself immortal does not
mean to assure for oneself a personal immortality, an
immortality of which the Greek philosopher did not
seem to have any very clear conception. To him it
meant to succeed in living the intellectual life which
is the divine and imperishable life.

58. Mysticism.

Plotinus and the neo-platonists saw in this passage
from their master a confirmation of the stimuli
of Plato, according to whom the soul, imprisoned in
the body, ^ must ever unceasingly tend to escape and
endeavour to break the bonds by which it is connected
with it.

The mysticism which has as its consequence
morbid ecstasy^ is thus the issue of a moral theory
which tries to raise men's ideals far above human
miseries. To wish to enter into communion with a
divinity which has hardly anything human about it,
which we conceive as bodiless and almost soulless,
since it is nothing but a pure spirit, is not merely to
attempt the impossible, but it is to give way to
madness.

Mysticism can only flourish by the abandonment
of manly thoughts, by the renunciation of the exercise
of his reason by the reasonable being, for to exercise

^ op. ciL, Book X., chap. vii. p. 12.

^ "Like an oyster in its shell," PhaedruSy 250; the body is an
enclosure or prison in which the soul is incarcerated, Crat. 400. — Tr.
^ Cf. Sidgwick, History of Ethics, pp. 105* 108. —Tr.

Il6 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

his reason is to judge with his will when he only
affirms or denies according to human tendencies.
Now human tendencies, unless they are morbid, are
not attracted by the unknowable, by the mysterious,
incomprehensible being, the very conception of which
demands an effort which can only be translated in
our language by giving it its full meaning — ex-
travagance.

The morality of the mystic is that of morbid
impulses, hallucinatory visions, and delirious con-
ceptions. Such is the fatal result of the disequili-
bration of the mental functions when it is a question
of giving absolute predominance either to pure in-
tellect or to pure love.

The mysticism of the present day has sometimes
taken one of the varied forms of eroticism.^ Men
seek a subtilised form of love which has nothing
human about it, and in which there is no " fleshly
passion." They only succeed in realising this extra-
ordinary sentiment by a distortion of normal love.
The latter is at first quite inseparable from the sexual
instinct; but there are perversions of the sexual
instinct which only allow a few general character-
istics of the multiple characters of the corresponding
impulse to subsist. In certain cases the primitive
love of the individuals of a sex for the individuals of
another sex becomes a vague love of humanity, and
in other cases, an equally vague love of a divinity
that is only partially conceived.

To this is due the morbid aspect of the religion of
humanity in certain Positivists, and especially in
Auguste Comte during the latter part of his life.

^ Havelock Ellis, Psychology of Sex, ii. pp. 267 et seq. ; Ribot,
The Psychology of the Emotions, pp. 99, 319.— Tr.

THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA. II7

This new religion, endeavouring to replace the moral
practice inspired by positive precepts, differs but
little from the ethico-religious practices which are
based on the love of God: it is still a mysticism, for
it claims to develop in man a sentiment which nor-
mally can have no place in his heart; the love of
Humanity in general differs as much from the love
of concrete beings as the love of the unknowable,
which meo always conceive under some particular
aspect, differs from it.

We cannot ask a man to sacrifice his pleasures,
and the delights of his present existence, and his
tendencies, which are usually directed towards ends
not remote or to present objects, to the sole desire
of divine happiness or the happiness of a vague
Humanity throughout thousands of years; this
desire, aroused by confused or abstracted notions,
will never have any real efficacy save on morbid
minds, inflamed against nature, trying to crush
every natural instinct and every really human in-
clination, and only taking delight in so precarious
an amusement, because of the disequilibration of
their condition.

59. The Ethics of Spinoza.

A great philosopher has proposed to man a love of
God, of reason, and of humanity as a whole, which
may be substituted for all the other sentiments,
which may destroy them all, and of itself assure
happiness. This, I think, adequately characterises
Spinoza and his celebrated theory of the "amor
Dei intellectualis."

His whole ethics tends to show that human passions

Il8 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

are due to confused visions, and notably to ignor-
ance of the true cause of phenomena. To avoid the
slavery of the passions, and to become at the same
time active and free, every event must be referred to
God, to the unique substance which is the sole cause
of it through the inevitable inter-relations of pheno-
mena. To see the necessity of what is, to consider
oneself and all other beings as a necessary mode of a
divine attribute, to win immortality for one's soul by
making of it a thought exactly corresponding to the
" idea which necessarily expresses the essence of the
human body in God," ^ or "an idea which expresses the
essence of the human body sub specie cBternitatis 2 — that
should be the principal care of the wise. The duty of
the disciple of Spinoza, as well as of the follower of
Aristotle, is to make himself immortal by avoiding all
natural passions. " From the third type of adequate
knowledge (intuitive knowledge of things seen under
the aspect of eternity) necessarily arises the intel-
lectual love of God. For from this kind of know^-
ledge results the joy accompanying the conception
of God as cause, which, by the fifth definition of the
passions, constitutes the love of God, in so far as we
conceive it eternal, and that is what I call the
intellectual love of God."^

This love is nothing more than the sentiment
which accompanies the conception of a universal
necessity, accepted, not without resignation, as if it
were a question of an odious fatalism, but with
pleasure because the reason is satisfied. Is not such
a moral philosophy of superhuman grandeur ?*

1 Spinoza, V., Prop, xxiii. 2 /^/^^ gchol. « Ibid,, Coroll. xxxii.
* Guyau, La Morale d'' Epicure, *' Mais cet amour, au fond, n'a rien
de libre; c*est une necessity," p. 236. — Tr.

THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA. IIQ

It presents itself, however, in all Spinoza's work as
an ethic of great social influence, since the amor Dei
intellectualiSy the love of pure reason, appears to us as
alone capable of uniting men who are divided by
their individual interests and passions.^ Spinoza's
politics are a legitimate development of his morality.
The degree of morality required for the soul to
become immortal is not therefore proposed as an
inaccessible ideal; Spinoza believed in the possibility
of realising in human nature his conception of the
virtuous being. It may be surprising that the
thinker who has so skilfully analysed the passions
of man, who, no doubt, experienced them with in-
tensity, should have attributed to pure love of the
universal reason so great a power. But we must
never forget that Spinoza is an inflexible logician,
absorbed in demonstrations more geometrico, who,
when once a principle is laid down, follows it up to
its remotest consequences without troubling himself
about their agreement with reality.

From the tendency of the being to persevere in his
being, joined with the belief, which in his opinion is
false, that others can favour or oppose this essential
tendency — from this he derives all the passions,
and from this in the same way he deduces all
"actions," all morality, and every fundamental
"conatus," joined to the idea that God is the sole
and eternal agent. And thus Spinoza does not
trouble himself with human nature; he pursues his
long series of demonstrations, corollaries, and scholia
after having by a stroke of the pen substituted pure
reason for the passionate nature of man. And that
is why his Ethics is at once so beautiful and so use-
^ Vide above, sect. 41, p. 77. — Tr.

120 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

less; it is one of those noble works which win
admirers but not disciples.

To require men to renounce their natural senti-
ments and to devote themselves either to the dis-
interested contemplation of the true, as Plato and
Aristotle required, or to the love of God, of Humanity,
or of reason, is quite obviously to demand a super-
human effort. All the springs of the soul are broken
in a state of extreme tension; or rather, there is
nothing left but illusion, self-dupery in a sham
morality.

60. The Stoic Morality,

Nor is normal systematisation best assured by
those moral theories which develop to excess analo-
gous sentiments.

Stoicism is a doctrine of excessive tension (tovos)
against everything which may appear indulgence to
human nature. Epicurus attained a kind of asceti-
cism from an excessive desire for apathy; in their
search for impassiveness the Stoics eventually de-
spised pain, and even brought themselves into the
mental attitude of the martyrs; their love of virtue
led them to the conclusion that it is nowhere to be
found.

We must not be led astray by their maxim, ^rjv
ofjLoXoyovfieviDs, which was very rapidly completed by
the disciples of Cleanthes, if not, indeed, by Cleanthes
himself, ofioXoyovfihio^ ry <f>v(r€t ^rjv. For it is not a
question with them of living according to human
nature, but rather according to the rule which
governs all nature, the Xoyos immanent, at the same
time both reason and providence, which is the

THE STOIC MORALITY. 121

principle of order in the universe, and should be
in man the principle of that order, that harmony,
and that beauty in which virtue essentially consists.
" Our own natures are parts of universal nature, our
end is therefore to live conformably to nature."^

To introduce the least disorder into the universe is
to be vicious, and in vice, as in virtue, there are no
degrees. ^*A man in the water does not drown any
more at six feet deep than at six hundred below the
surface of the water." The recognition of a possible
progress towards the highest virtue, a progress which
was already the sign of a virtuous nature, was a tardy
improvement of the doctrine. The wise man could
not have one virtue without having them all. But
where are we to find that wise man ?

Air men, then, were "mad, impious, and slaves,"
for the Stoics themselves confessed that they had
never seen their ideal realised. This was because the
wise man ought not only to have all the virtues, to be
"the sole just and pious man, the sole priest, the
sole savant and poet, the friend, citizen, general, magis-
trate, orator, dialectician, and grammarian " par
excellence, but he ought also to experience no passion,
for passion is an " irrational movement of the soul, a
stormy and immoderate impulse, contrary to nature,"
from which the virtuous being is exempt because he
is infallible.^

No doubt there were noble affections which the
Stoics admired — joy, rational elevation as opposed
to pleasure, circumspection and will — but the ideal
state was none the less in their eyes impassivity, the
absence of all abandonment to pleasure or pain, and

* Renouvier, Manuel de Philosophie ancienne, t. ii. p. 282.
2 Cf. Diogenes, Life of Zeno, vii. io8-ii8.

122 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

they did not desire to experience happiness except
under abnormal tension.

Pity seems to have been unknown to them ; they
praised friendship and practised it ; they gave noble
examples of devotion and solidarity; and we cannot
forget that it was one of the last of the Stoics who
called himself a citizen of the world, extending his
affection to the whole human race ; but there was in
primitive Stoicism the unmistakable sign of appalling
hardness of heart. How many forms of good were
there on which the sage cast a disdainful glance?
How many evils did he consider negligible ? Does
pain depend on us? If it is not in our power to
avoid it, or to cause it to cease, it is therefore
a matter of indifference to us, it does not count:
we need pay no attention to it. **The exist-
ence of all so-called evils is explained by the
necessities of organisation and life. These are all
circumstances connected with the great final causes
of the universe, and are therefore as such indifferent
to the sage."

This optimism, which sometimes had such tragical
consequences, has some grandeur about it. It is a
false grandeur nevertheless, like that of the man
who does not wish his poverty to be seen. That
psychology is erroneous which refuses to recognise
that, in many cases, emotions and tendencies are
normal facts of the mental life. It arbitrarily
demands of human nature impossible sacrifices.

6i. The Msthetic Sentiment.

The Stoics seem to have always given to their
doctrine the attraction which a conception, that has

THE iESTHETIC SENTIMENT. I23

for its centre the idea of the beautiful, always has on
the human mind. They had conceived of the uni-
verse as an admirable order, as a reality full of
harmony and finality, in which the human mind
aesthetic joy; was it not inevitable that man, in a
could find a thousand motives of astonishment and
spirit of what one may almost call sulkiness, should
have attempted to destroy this marvellous totality ?

ERRATUM.
Page 123, 5/A and 6th lines should read :

could find a thousand motives of astonishment and
aesthetic joy ; was it not inevitable that man, in a

bility and the understanding, a preparation, a
were, for the moral sentiment. And it seems ti.
he was right when he saw in aesthetics the "anti-
chamber" of morality.^ The sense of the beautiful
may, no doubt, be produced independently of every
moral sentiment. All that is beautiful is not satisfy-
ing to our conscience. Art aims at cultivating senti-
ments, which, to be disinterested, in comparison with
hedonistic and utilitarian tendencies, are none the
less more akin to satisfactions of the intelligence
than to moral satisfaction. A work of art, or a
natural phenomenon worthy of admiration, appeals
especially to^ the imagination and to the reason;
to the one they give a free course in the field of the
concrete, connected with the present perception and

^ Cf. Ruskiiii Sesame and Lilies, * * Taste is not only a part and an
index of morality ; it is the only morality.'* — Tr.

124 'T^^ MORAL TENDENCIES.

the idea at first evoked; to the other they allow its
favourite occupation — synthesis, " subsumption," as
Kant called it, of a multiplicity of data under the
unity of the concept and of the multiplicity of con-
cepts under the unity of the principle. Thus they
procure for us the pleasure of amusement, of human
amusement par excellence, unknown to animals because
they have not a reason sufficiently exercised to ex-
perience the pleasure of disentangling ideas, and of
giving them the richest possible sensible expression.
But in direct relation with conduct is the character
of the " communicability " of aesthetic impressions
and pleasures. Guyau put it very well when
he said: "When I see the beautiful I want to
be two."^ The enjoyment that one experiences in
the contemplation of a work of art is one of those
very rare enjoyments which we love to share with
others, or to experience in common. The more
numerous are those who share in an emotion of this
kind, the deeper it is in each, and that because of the
repercussion of the emotions of others in oneself.
Then is produced in fact one of those phenomena of
sympathy which are the point of departure of a new
order of tendencies — the altruistic tendencies.^

62. The Altruistic Tendencies?

Sympathy in its rudimentary form is nothing more
than a physiological and mental adaptation to a fact

1 Cf. Guyau, ProbUmes de V EsthHique Contemporaine, — Tr.

2 Cf. Ribot, op, ciL, chap, x.— Tr.

^ Ribot, op, cit,y chap, iv., "On the different and conflicting degrees
of altruism;" vide Sorley, op, cit,, p. 143. — Tr.

THE ALTRUISTIC TENDENCIES. I25

of emotional expression in another.^ The animal is
not incapable of experiencing its effects; man ex-
periences them much more keenly because his mind
is simpler, and his spontaneous reactions are less
obstructed or inhibited by reflection or by counter
associations of an empirical origin. In the presence
of a being exhibiting keen pleasure or pain, the
intelligent and "naive" animal (if I may use this word
of the being in whom are absent the "antagonistic
reductives,'' which ordinarily place an obstacle in the
way of suggestibility or credulity) permits its clear
consciousness to be invaded by the, from that
moment, very lively representation of the emotion
of another; and in virtue of the well-known law in
accordance with which the preponderant image pro-
duces the realisation of the corresponding move-
ment or system of movements, we see the spectator
of the pain of a fellow-creature either betray signs
of similar pain, or, at any rate, place himself where
he can avoid the cause of the pain. In the same
way he who is present at the experience of another's
joy, if he is a simple soul in whom jealous senti-
ments have not made their appearance, cannot fail to
share that pleasure, even although he may not know
why his fellow is rejoicing. Many acts of devotion
and of heroic self-sacrifice are due to a sympathy
as instinctive as it is elementary. How many men
throw themselves into danger, blindly and without
reflection, to help beings whom they do not know,
who have never inspired them with affection, simply
from the effect of the sympathetic impulse ! ^

* Lloyd Morgan, Introduction to Comparative Psychology ^ p. 321 ;
ib,^ Psychology for Tecuhers^ p. 234 ; James, <?/. cU.^xu pp. 410, 41 1. — Tr.
'•* Ribot, op* cit,y chap. iv.

126 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

At this first stage, at least, there are really no
altruistic tendencies; there are only disinterested
impulses. Whatever La Rochefoucauld^ and his
disciples may say, real disinterestedness exists;
but it is sometimes prior to every calculation and
reflection, spontaneous, and almost unjustifiable by
the light of cool reason. All that education can
do is to strengthen it by declaring it in conformity
with certain exigencies of practical reason. The
development of the intellect tends on the contrary to
eliminate it, to replace it by a fundamentally egoistic
calculation of the interest that one may have in
doing good to others, of the advantages that one
may expect for oneself if one shows oneself dis-
interested.

The love of others does not become a tendency
•really distinct both from primitive sympathy and
the egoism developed by reflection, until the age of
puberty, when there is in the organism what we
may call an overflow of energy, an excess of vitality.
The necessity of self-sacrifice without selfish after-
thought is then clear. That is the moment of
chivalrous enterprises, of generous dreams, of illusions
which are sometimes ridiculous, of hopes which
are sometimes chimerical — illusions and hopes
which always denote something more than serene
self-confidence, and the keenest desire of living
the widest and the most complete social life that
is possible.^

Sexual love is only a means to a higher end —

Ml y a quelque chose dans les malheurs de nos meilleurs amis qui
ne nous deplalt pas. — Proverb » — Tr.

^ C£, Mercier, Sanity and Insanity y pp. 208*212; Chamberlain,
The Child: A Study in the Evolution of Man^ pp. 411-415.— Tr.

GENEROSITY. 1 27

procreation, and the love of children. When the
man has reached the stage of gathering a family
around him, he no longer lives for himself but for
his belongings, and in his devotion at all times to
those who are nearest and dearest to him he is
going through the apprenticeship to social life w^ith
its implied devotion to the collective interest.

Thus the social tendencies have two principles in
the individual nature, spontaneous sympathy and
love, impulses and needs which are each of a psycho-
physiological nature, and can only lead to failure
in the case of abnormal or incomplete beings.
The development of the social tendencies produces
the spirit of family,^ the spirit of association, the
spirit of sect, civic virtues, urbanity, patriotism,
humanitarian aspirations, noble political passions,
etc. — varied sentiments which play the most im-
portant r61e in moral deliberation, and which are
most often in opposition to the egoistic tendencies, to
the preservation and development of the individual
being, tendencies themselves opposed to one an-
other in so far as they are defensive or offensive,
conservative or reforming.

The complete development of the social senti-
ments takes us farther and farther away from selfish
individualism.

63. Generosity.

To live with one's fellow-creatures, and to get
from them as much as one can, and to pay them as
little as possible in return, is the aim of the intel-

^ But vide Ribol, op, cii, p. 285: ** A high development of the social
tendencies has only been possible through the suppression of the family
tendencies."— Tr.

128 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

ligent egoist, of the man who has grasped the idea
that we can only secure happiness for ourselves in
a society by making some sacrifices to the interests
of others : such a man carefully calculates what his
devotion to the public good, and what the services
he renders to his fellow-creatures, will bring him in
return, and he does nothing for which he will not
receive an equivalent; he is well armed for the
fray, but he lacks something that is human —
generosity.^

Guyau,^ from a purely naturalistic standpoint,
clearly saw that "life has two faces: on the one
hand it is nutrition and assimilation, on the other
production and fecundity. . . . To spend on others
what the social life demands, is not, when all is
said and done, an individual loss; it is a desirable
aggrandisement and even a necessity. The object of
life is radiation." Egoism corresponds to nutrition
and altruism to reproduction ; there is perhaps even
more than a correspondence: the need of assimila-
tion dominates the whole sphere of economics;
it is this need which induces man to employ
himself in every kind of industry, which leads
to competition and discord; but the need of re-
production, of child-bearing, of giving, of radiating,
comes from the very first to counterbalance
the effects of the other natural need ; and it is that
which has, in the origin of civilisation, been the
cause of games and holidays, and from which has
arisen art and religion ; this it is which gives rise to
animal and human sociability.

M. Espinas has shown how "animal societies'*

* Spencer, Principles of Psychology^ chap. viii.

'■^ Esquisse d^tme morale sans obligation ni sanction. — Tr.

GENEROSITY. I29

founded on the instinct of reproduction, on the
care to be given in common to the young, may in
many respects be compared with human societies.
Love, in its origin, is pure disinterestedness, ab-
negation, joy in spontaneous, natural, irreflective
sacrifice. Sexual love is the very antithesis of
utilitarian calculation. Paternal or maternal love
in animals is even quite the opposite of egoistic
prudence. Civilisation has no doubt, side by side
with the power of reflection, developed in humanity
self-love and the tendency to make of oneself the centre
of the universe ; but to an ignorant reflection which
encourages a foolish pride, we may more and more
oppose a scientific reflection which discloses to man
his insignificance and makes him conscious of his
vanity. What thinker who, realising his lack of
influence on the world, his humble origin, what-
ever is accidental in his success, or illusory in
the gratification he experiences in " believing himself
to be some one,'* does not feel himself bound to
surrender an unjustified egoism ? Does not much
knowledge restore to us what a little knowledge
takes from us — a proper humility and a greater
respect for others? If we do not allow ourselves
to be misled by a false conception of our ego, we
find generous sentiments spontaneously growing
within us, which urge us to help others, to give
without the hope of return, and to sacrifice
ourselves without the hope of reward. And in pro-
portion as we attain a higher degree of mental de-
velopment we begin to feel a desire for expenditure,
uncalculated action, and disinterested activity.

As Guyau"^ says, "There is in lofty pleasures a

1 Op, cit.

130 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

force of expansion ever ready to pierce the envelope of
our ego. In their presence we feel we are insufficient
to ourselves, and only act in order to transmit them,
just as the vibrating atom of the ether gradually
transmits the ray of the sidereal light which crosses
it, and of which it retains nothing but a transient
vibration. It is our whole being that is sociable;
life does not recognise the absolute classifications
and divisions of the metaphysicians and logicians;
our being cannot, even if it desired, be completely
egoistic."

64. Sociability}

The force of vital expansion is thus the natural
foundation of sociability; the modifications of this
force constitute the generous sentiments which cause
men to become not only "invading but invaded,"
which prevent them from remaining content with
the maximum of assimilation, which induce them to
refrain from appropriating for their own benefit the
greatest amount of good, and assuring for themselves
the greatest number of advantages ; as soon as they
feel themselves in possession of some joy, some good,
or some advantage, they endeavour to communicate
it to their fellow-creatures and to share it with them.
"We have more tears than we need for our own
sufferings, and more joys in reserve than our own
happiness justifies." ^ Only depressed, congenitally
weak, and impotent beings fall back on themselves;
they have no more energy than is needed for their

^ For Guyau's doctrine of the expansion of life as a principle of
ethics, art, and religion, vide Fouillee, La Morale^ VArt^ et La
Religion d^Apres M, Cuyau^ and The Westminster Review^ April
1892, pp. 394 et seq,

2 Guyau, op, cit.

SOCIABILITY. I3T

own subsistence; they are always suffering from a
want of vital energy, and therefore lack sociability.
But in all those to whom good health and vigour
permit a normal life we see generosity increase and
decrease with the exuberance and harmony of the
vital processus. The more pleasant life is, the greater
is joy, and the greater also is generosity.

The normal man is therefore generous, and ipso
facto he begins to be a social being. But more is
required. Sociability is not only the aptitude to
live with one's fellows, and to share in common
one's prosperity, advantages, troubles, and joys. It
is also an aptitude to submit oneself to a common
rule, and to live a regular life according to the
prescriptions imposed upon all by all.

Perhaps I have not hitherto insisted sufficiently
on this mark of sociability which springs from an
essentially rational tendency. There are in society
two opposite tendencies, the one to imitation, the
other to innovation. If we wish to explain in a
satisfactory manner the synergy of individual
changes from the point of view of collective
modification, we must place above these general
appetitions a tendency to impose on others, and to
accept from others rules of common and even of
individual conduct.

In fact, what are the beings who do not re-
cognise the authority of such rules, who are always
in a state of revolt against all authority, and profess
to obey themselves alone — i.e., to follow their own
caprices? They are the diseased, the unstable,
those who have no self-control, who are without
the inhibitive force which enables them to co-
ordinate their tendencies and to systematise their

132 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

different states of consciousness. They are con-
sidered unsociable, not simply because they do not
submit themselves to the domination of law and rules
at present established by the State and the com-
munity, but rather, and on juster grounds, because
they cannot bear the yoke of any law, of any power,
even of their own reason. They give way in the
presence of strong restraint, but only for a moment;
they imitate, and sometimes very easily, but they
imitate in turn irreconcilable models. Therefore,
neither compulsion nor imitation can give them
sociability; they lack a normal tendency. It goes
without saying that this new aspect of sociability,
due to legality, although by itself it may have
the effect of establishing the greatest uniformity
in the sentiments, tendencies, and acts, is not at
first blended with the spirit of obedience, but is
much more akin to mean servility, of complaisance
to the powerful, whoever they may be, which is a
sign of weakness, and is the almost exclusive mark
of the domestic animal; later, it does not exclude
tendencies to innovation, to freedom of mind, and
to action relatively original. It forbids eccentricity
and unbridled originality, which would prevent men
from coming to a common understanding on art,
religion, politics, just as on any other way of looking
at the facts of existence or of solving practical
questions. It is an insuperable obstacle to moral
anarchy, but it must not become a cause of routine
or social stagnation. It causes in every environment,
at every stage of civilisation, a common spirit whose
conceptions and artistic tastes, whose fashions and
simplest customs, ought to bear its mark; but it
must also be reconciled with the first characteristic

TENDENCY TO SOCIAL ORGANISATION. I33

we have recognised in sociability : the characteristic
of generosity which arises from the tendency to
make our fellows share in the pleasure we experience,
the good we enjoy, and the state of mind in which
we are.

The spirit of obedience to a common law, and of
conformity to collective prescriptions may serve as
an " antagonistic reducer " to the spirit of innovation
which sometimes is the cause of an unlimited gene-
rosity. It is only by making the synthesis of the
two tendencies that we can attain the conception
of that sociability which may henceforth- be defined
as the aptitude to live in common according to
the same rules, but in such a way as to make all
share as much as possible in the advantages and the
joys which are assured to each by the degree of
perfection which each has attained.

63. Tendency to Social Organisation,

A still higher degree of sociability may be at-
tained by the superior being who feels within him-
self enough force, talent, and energy to devote
himself to the work of social organisation.

We might take up again, with considerable modi-
fication, the Leibnitzian conception of a perfect being,
organising the world in such a way that the greatest
harmony of the greatest number of elements is the
result. It is enough to transpose from the divine to
the human this idea of creative activity ; to say that
each of us, in so far as we are reasonable, aspires to
become the organiser par excellence ; that the aim of
moral activity is in truth of the architectonic order ;
is it not therefore natural to conceive of the obliga-

134 THE MORAL TENDENCIES.

tion to labour, like so many terrestrial gods, in the
building up of a work whose scope is outside our
individual sphere, our environment, and our age ?

The most intelligent child in the village endea-
vours to organise the heterogeneous band of his
companions; not only does he try, as so many
psychological moralists have pointed out, to im-
pose the same rule of games upon all, to submit
all to a strict observation of certain principles of
conduct, but he forces himself to govern, to dis-
tribute the functions and r61es, to co-ordinate,
organise, and systematise.^ Adults do the same.
The whole of humanity has ever been in search
of an organising power from the earliest moment
of its existence as a reasoning species. Govern-
ments are not artificial organs, the arbitrary crea-
tions oi the imagination, " inventions " which might
never have been " happened on "; the idea of govern-
ment, inseparable from that of conduct, rule, or moral
law, is one of the fundamental data of practical reason.

The duty of organising human society and of
systematising social life was observed before it was
known. This duty appears more and more to every,
reasonable being as incumbent not on this or that
member of the social body in particular, but on every
member of the sovereign body, that is to say on every
citizen.

To sum up, we see superimposed on tendencies
to pleasure, happiness, and individual and collective
utility, tendencies to intellectual and aesthetic
pleasure ; and finally sociability, a complex tendency
which embraces altruism, the spirit of sacrifice,
the spirit of solidarity, of discipline, of obedience

^ Fide Chamberlain, op. cit., chap. ii.

PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAL AND MORAL FIRMNESS. I35

to laws and to generous innovation. All these
tendencies, far from being incompatible, form a
system in the moral being.

IV.

The Moral Individual.

66. The Psychological Ideal and Moral Firmness.

A man cannot be fully moral if he does not realise
the psychological ideal in the widest possible measure.
But to attain this higher degree, viz., morality, he
must begin by having a healthy mind.

Now normal systematisation consists in the stability
of certain tendencies which do not prevent the ap-
pearance of others, but which give to them as it
were the characteristic colouring of the person who
manifests them, and which in particular bring it about
that the successive appetitions of an individual form
a continuous series, the different terms of which are
closely linked together, and in some measure summon
one another. These tendencies which constitute
the essential character of a being can only be very
general, and their object very indeterminate. One
subject has a more marked tendency than another
to remember sounds or colours (auditive or visual
types), to associate ideas by contrast or resemblance,
to experience violent or joyful emotions, and to
act slowly or quickly; but such features of the
character, if they sometimes predispose rather to
activity than to speculation, to art than to science,
none the less may not prevent us from experiencing
scientific or artistic pleasure as well as happiness

136 THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL.

in certain social, friendly, or family relations. If
they cause attention to be attracted to and to be
maintained on objects of art rather than on con-
ceptions, or on business, they do not prevent the
mind from understanding arguments, from finding
pleasure in discussion, in deduction, or in absorption
in affairs.

What is of importance to the normal develop-
ment of the mental functions is, that there shall be
no breaches of continuity in the mental activity,
breaches due to a juxtaposition of successive
tendencies or inclinations without a mutual bond.
Now the succession of states of consciousness is by
itself, and by itself alone, the source of lively
satisfaction, of psychological pleasure, if we may
say so, when it is effected without violence or
sudden shock, by a sort of interpenetration of the
sentiments which takes place in the unoccupied
consciousness. Is not this pleasure the index of
the normal state par excellence^ and ought it not
to be sought by the moral agent, and in the first
place from the point of view of his personal satis-
faction, in so far as he is a purely psychic being ?

For its production, a certain firmness is required.
In fact what usually is harmful to mental continuity is
that the mind is given up defenceless to every kind
of influence, buffeted in every direction, incapable
of introducing order into its representations, of
effecting complete syntheses, of following an argu-
ment, or of maintaining in predominance certain
tendencies; of avoiding the violent emotions and
the painful and disturbing sentiments, which are
the "emotion-shocks" of which Dr. Janet has so
clearly shown the dissolving power.

PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAL AND MORAL FIRMNESS. I37

When the tendencies are closely grouped they
oppose every mental disturbance as a permanent
obstacle, they give to thought, to sensibility, and
to activity, a solid foundation; the individual be-
comes master of himself and has a strong character.

Nothing is therefore more necessary than firmness
of character (and therefore strength of will) for the
normal adaptation of the being to its environment.

"Morality is the person itself; therefore we al-
ready find traces of it — I mean the elements and
the foundation — in a rich strong nature, in what
one calls a temperament, a character. On the
other hand a mobile nature, impressionable and
vivacious, that is attracted by contrary emotions in
different directions, a mind without consistence and
without foundation, mens momentanea, lacks moral
aptitudes. It must be absolved from evil, but we
must also refuse to it the attribute of good. There
is therefore a natural morality, the conformity of
tendencies to some restraint, whatever it may be,
or simply to their constancy." ^

While the monomaniac is led to create for himself
an imaginary world in which he thinks he lives, and
which prevents him from feeling keenly the sufferings
involved in his lack of adaptation to his environment,
and while the stubborn man is unhappy because he
does not know how to vary his circumstances, the
man who is gifted with a strong will reacts on ex-
ternal stimuli in an appropriate manner, although
his reactions always bear the mark of his character ;
the course of his states of consciousness loses none of
its continuity, although the. external circumstances
vary, and that, even when they are modified in the

* Cf. Dugas, Kevm Philosophique (1897), t. xliv. p. 398.

138 THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL.

most quaint or unexpected fashion. He it is who
knows both how to submit to circumstances and
how to utilise them for his ends.^ Not only is he
impelled on occasion to direct the course of events,
but he lacks nothing of that indispensable art which
consists in bowing to the exigencies of the environ-
ment ; instead of letting himself be disconcerted or
frightened by a rude shock, he takes time to bring
himself into harmony with himself and with what is
external to him.

And so the moral being is not accessible to fear,
to anger, or to those violent sentiments which betray
weakness of will. He does not experience those ex-
aggerated and sympathetic emotions of which a more
or less delirious enthusiasm, and a more or less de-
pressing and morbid pity are composed, and at the
same time does not show himself hard to others to
the point of cruel and indifferent coldness ; he keeps
his sang-froid in the presence of great pain, he knows
how to be severe to those who deserve no indulgence,
and for whom love is another name for severity. He
knows how to keep himself from the "moral con-
tagion " which causes panics as do great waves of joy
or collective grief; far from being impassible like the
Stoics of old, he lets himself go in the presence of
joy, and he can experience sadness, but always with
moderation.

67. Moderation.

The Aristotelian theory^ of the relative mean
between two extremes is based upon a very exact

^ Res mihit me rebus ^ submit tere conor (adapted quotation).
^ Ethics^ Book II. , chap. ix. ; Sidgwick, History of Ethics^ pp.
58, 59.--TR.

MODERATION. I39

observation of the conditions of normal sensibility.
For a sentiment, or for a succession of sentiments,
to produce pleasure, the tendencies, which are among
the constituent elements of every sentiment, must
be strong enough to determine a complex and well-
ordinated psychic activity. But it is necessary in
addition that they should not be so violent as to
render the subject insatiable, devoured by desire
for impossible or unrealisable gratifications. They
must not destroy or eliminate other perfectly normal
tendencies, whose disappearance is not unaccom-
panied by pain. They must therefore be counter-
balanced and moderated by appetitions, or by
contrary inclinations which lack neither intensity
nor duration. Voluntary attention ought, if need be,
to give these inhibitive tendencies of violent passions
the intensity and the duration which they lack.

Temperance thus becomes one of the means of
realising the normal psychic Hfe. It is difficult
at first to be temperate under all circumstances;
but self-control, like every other act, may become
habitual, and demand after a lapse of time less
effort. We see people in whom the appearance of
a tendency is immediately followed by an effort
made in some way to control themselves, not to
yield to an appetition until after examination, and
that is one of the effects of a temperance which has
become habitual.

And this temperance, which engenders prudence,
moderation in opinion, and wise deliberation before
action, may always have its inconveniences; not
only may it become distrust, cowardice, or a
tendency to inertia, if the possible tendencies to
eagerness and enthusiasm are too energetically

140 THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL.

opposed, but it also may be harmful to those fine
impulses of courage, of confidence, of love, etc., which
are capable of adding to the dignity of man, and of
yielding great pleasure without any admixture of
pain. Passion is not always evil, and it has been
wrongly defined as perverted inclination. There are
noble passions indispensable to the unfolding and to
the manifestation of genius and talent, and no less
necessary to moral actions of the widest scope. Will
it be maintained that intellectual or moral genius
is an abnormal thing and akin to madness? No
doubt many geniuses and many talented individuals
pay for their fertility by a precocious neurosis. No
doubt mental over-activity in a particular domain is
injurious to mental equilibrium, and may lead to
disorder in the psychic system;^ but there may
exist, or at least one can conceive of the existence of,
an exceptional fertility of the intellect and the will,
which is not abnormal and which does not prevent
one from speaking of temperance in genius; for it
is precisely at the moment when a tendency takes
exceptional scope that the greater need of an
"antagonist reducer" is felt, in order that the
limits of the normal may be attained without being
exceeded, in order that genial eagerness may not
become morbid excitement, and a fine passion may
not be transformed into an acute mania.

Temperance is therefore a quality of the moral
being, whether he be an ordinary or a superior man ;

^ Cf. Grasset, Conference sur le Ginie et la Nhrosc^ Monlpellier,
1899; Ribot, op, cit., pp. 360-364, 437 (degeneration a niecessary con-
dition of high mental originality, "genius a neurosis"); Mercier, op,
di,y p. 181 ; Fere, 7%e Pathology of ihe Emotions^ chap, xx.; Chamber-
lain, op, cit.^ p. 45 ; Lombroso, The Man of Genius, passim. — Tr.

VIRTUE AND TRUTH. I4I

it is his first guarantee of continuous pleasure and
happiness.

But, like all the other qualities which are con-
nected with strength of character, it aims rather at
psychological health than at morality properly so
called. If the latter has for its necessary conditions
the equilibrium of the mind, mental continuity, the
cohesion of essential tendencies, we cannot always
say that these are the only conditions sufficient for
good conduct. Remarkable determination, excep-
tional constancy, perfect lucidity, and a kind of
sanity of the mind may be found in crime and in
immorality. But the sanity of the great criminal,
whose conduct is quite consistent, is the sanity of an
inferior mind. This being is normal if we consider
it in isolation, and if we judge it by psychological
criteria; but it is no longer so if we consider it from
the sociological and moral point of view. In fact, it
lacks certain tendencies whose dominion over the
mind assures the exact correspondence of the psychic
and moral health.

For a man who is exempt from neuropathic
troubles and from psycho-pathic disorder to be a
moral being, he must have certain habits of thought
and action which reveal the constant play upon his
will of higher tendencies, of sentiments such as the
love of the true and the beautiful, and above all
of those aptitudes to life in common to which we
have given the name of sociability.

68. Virtue and Truth.

The moral virtues are the natural consequences of
the prominence in the mind of these lofty appetitions.

142 THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL.

systematised in such a way that it is difficult to be
ruled by any one of them without being at the same
time ruled by all the others. The Stoics used to say
that virtue is one,^ and that if we lack one moral
quality we lack them all. In spite of the obvious
exaggeration of this statement, they were right; for
real morality only exists for him who has reached
the summit of a hierarchy of tendencies and corre-
sponding habits, which support one another and
condition one another, both in their appearance
and in their survival of the effort that gave birth
to them.

We begin to be virtuous by acquiring, through the
proper exercise of the intellect, and through scientific
culture, a persistent tendency to search for truth, to
avoid error, and to detest falsehood. The cult of the
true is a condition of morality. What, in fact, would
be the individual in a perfect social system, who
should commit error, spread it abroad, act upon it,
and urge others to act according to erroneous
maxims? If he were honestly self-deceived, he
would lack sanity from the psychological point of
view, and we should have to cure a misguided mind.
But if he lied, and led others into error knowingly,
with persistent bad faith, he would constitute
a factor of trouble, of disintegration, a morbid
element which would have to be eliminated from
every community which had for its end moral
perfection.

For error and falsehood are hostile to rational
systematisation. Truth is one of the ends of social
activity, because it brings the thoughts into agree-
ment and leads to the stable communion of minds.

^ Mackenzie, op. cit,^ p. 222. — Tr.

THE CULT OF THE BEAUTIFUL. I43

It is also one of the loftiest of the ends of individual
mental activity, because it alone furnishes a solid
basis of well co-ordinated action, and of action
that leads to success. Without the possession of
truth the best intentions are in vain, the will lacks
clearness, conception and deliberation are deprived
of their normal bases; there is no longer any moral
value in the agent, contrary to the opinion of those
who have induced themselves to believe that inten-
tion is in itself all that is required.

69. The Cult of the Beautiful.

We acquire a higher degree of virtue when we
unite to the love of the true the development of
aesthetic sentiments.

These sentiments, at any rate when they are free
from admixture with the emotions and with tend-
encies of an inferior order, cannot fail to have a
happy influence on conduct. The search for the
beautiful is not unrelated to the search for the
good, and that is why good actions are so often
called beautiful actions. No doubt there is in this
terminology a possible confusion, because facts of
the moral order have a particular beauty which
may arouse admiration without thereby responding
to an aesthetic taste; but it is none the less true
that in many cases it is because they satisfy our
desire for order, harmony, and beauty, that acts
which have a moral value are declared beautiful.^

With the exception of the Stoics and of Kant,
moralists have too rarely insisted on the moral
efifects produced by the desire of accomplishing

' Vidg above, Section 59.

144 THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL.

noble actions corresponding to aesthetic tendencies,
and that this ddsire may lead to felicitous results in
human conduct. Sometimes there are acts which
displease us, lines of conduct which are repugnant
to us, because a certain beauty is absent from them.
Moral rectitude is rather like a line in architecture
which pleases the eye because it does not demand
from it too much effort, and because it enables the
eye to embrace considerable diversity; we like to see
the development of a series of actions which, being
different and tending to different ends, have never-
theless a common characteristic, and in all of which
the same deep sentiment is revealed.

Disinterestedness with respect to all the material
advantages or ordinary ends of our actions, is often
only possible by the aid of the aesthetic interest
which certain means or certain ends present to us.
We then almost attain complete disinterestedness
without however realising it. Besides, to realise it
would, no doubt, be pernicious and fatal to action,
while to approach so near to it incontestably gives to
conduct the seal of an elevation pre-eminently human.

The refinement of aesthetic tendencies, the purity
of corresponding pleasures, can only contribute to
the refinement of the tendencies which determine
our action. To accustom one's self to admit as far
as possible what is really beautiful in contemplation
and in conduct, and to repel with energy that in
which ugliness causes a painful impression, was one
of the first principles of Greek morality, of the
rriorality sanctioned by the most ancient, the most
free-minded, and the most attractive race of an-
tiquity.

Why should the good necessarily assume an austere

THE CULT OF THE BEAUTIFUL. I45

aspect ? Why should we seek to deprive it of every
attraction, and especially of that aesthetic attraction
which only exists for human nature, and is the
greater in proportion as one appeals to the most
elevated minds? The beautiful no doubt is not
always the good. One may not even trouble one's
head about the good while admiring the beautiful;
but why should not the good be beautiful? The
charitable act of a man who lifts up out of the mud
another who is in rags, emaciated, wounded, and
repulsive — Avould not this act, if it made part of a
series of actions of the same kind, attract our aesthetic
sense, struck by the harmony which the different
stages of this conduct present to one another, and to
the rest of the existence of an honourable man ?

What is the characteristic of the beautiful ? To
give a sensible presentation of an idea by exhibiting
it as the unity of the richest diversity of concrete
elements — that is the answer of Leibnitz, Kant, and
Hegel; and if the answer is incomplete it none
the less furnishes one of the principal elements of
a complete answer. Now does not conduct mani-
fest by a diversity of concrete elements, by acts, the
unity of an idea, of a principle, of an ideal, and
ought it not therefore to be always beautiful ?

We may add, if we wish, to the response given by
great philosophers, the answer of the psychologists
and of the sociologists, who see in the beautiful the
triumph of man over the obstacles placed in the way
of the realisation of its conception, — the expression of
social, religious, or political ideas, so far as religion
and politics furnish the subject of the commonest
thought, — the manifestation of original power that
strikes us by the novelty of a synthesis which is bold

10

146 THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL. '

and yet not too bold, and which does not displease
us, — the wealth and exuberance of life giving birth to
amusement, adding luxury to well-being, generosity
and expansion to the struggle for existence. Is there
not something in all these conceptions of art, held
by Spencer, Guyau, Tarde, and so many others,
that finds some correspondence in the loftiest moral
actions, actions which are the flower of human
activity ?

And does not this prove that the aesthetic sen-
timents ought to be cultivated, developed, and
carried to their highest degree of power in the being
of whom we wish to make a moral agent, in order
that his conduct may be, to the highest degree,
aesthetic ? The sentiment of the beautiful and of the
sublime ought not therefore to be wanting to a man
who is tending to realise a human ideal.

According to M. Chabot,^ it is only in the aesthetic
conception of the good that the moral subject " may
be taken as a whole, — sentiment and reason, imagina-
tion and will, — and may devote all the forces of nature
to the work of morality." A good action is that
which under the dominance of duty is known, felt,
and carried out as the most beautiful possible. The
good man is an artist who has no right not to be one.

But, as we have seen on many occasions, he is an
artist who is working at a social work, at a w^ork of
solidarity which requires devotion; and displaying
not accidental devotion, but constant sacrifice of
himself to others. The virtues of the father, the
mother, or the brother in the family, those of the
artisan in the workshop or in the factory, those of
the citizen in the town or in the State, those of the

^ Nature et MoralitL Alcan, 1897.

JOY. 147

individual in humanity, are greater in proportion as
the different social functions are more regularly and
more disinterestedly performed, with a greater eager-
ness to be aiding in a moral work, with more success
in the incessant struggle against the natural or arti-
ficial difficulties which are an obstacle in the path
of human progress.

The moral being is thus, in short, the man who
endeavours to preserve for himself or to acquire
health of mind, to develop all his aptitudes to a wide
and fruitful life, to labour on behalf of social order,
and of the complete aesthetic and rational organisa-
tion of humanity. This being is virtuous, and he
deserves happiness.

70. Joy.

We ought in fact to give to joy and happiness a
place in moral activity. Man cannot give up joy
without doing an outrage to his nature, without con-
flicting with his dearest desires ; if he does renounce
it he is in most cases urged thereto by fear, either the
fear inspired by a master whom one obeys with
resignation or with sorrow, or the fear of ultimate
suffering out of all proportion to the pleasure
actually experienced.

We must therefore discover everything that is
likely to procure for us the greatest joy that we can
experience. In the hope of obtaining greater happi-
ness, we renounce certain innate or acquired tend-
encies; but this greater happiness must be definite in
order to exercise a greater attraction; it must really
be the greatest possible for the normal being, in
order that in his search the individual may have

148 THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL.

the assurance that nearly all his fellows recognise
the practical value of his objective maxims, approve
of him, encourage him, and will help him if required,
and in case of need and under similar circumstances
will act in a similar manner.

Moral action therefore depends on the establish-
ment of a hierarchy of joys in conformity with the
tendencies of human nature. But we may experience
pleasure in the accomplishment of habitual acts,
which primitively have been accomplished under
constraint, and then with habit have become the
substance of real needs; so that a tendency to
perform these acts is gradually formed, and becomes
stronger and stronger; so that eventually the sub-
ject would experience pain in not being able to
satisfy this tendency, and would experience pleasure
in satisfying it.

A fortiori, there is a great number of pleasures
resulting from the habit which has arisen in time
past of accomplishing acts which were agreeable
from the outset. The consequence of this habit
has been the excessive development of the tendency
primitively satisfied, which has very soon checked or
prevented the development of more elevated tend-
encies that might have procured greater pleasures.
So that the latter pleasures only being experienced
feebly, or not at all, either appear to be of an inferior
order, or are incapable of becoming the object of a
voluntary choice.

These are the pleasures of which M. Brunschvicg^
speaks, when he justly observes that " they demand
no effort or initiative; it is sufficient for us to
abandon ourselves to the agreeable impression which

^ ** L'ordre des joies" in Morale SociaUt p. 217.

JOY. 149

comes to us from without. Such is the habit of the
idle child, which can do nothing but play. ... It is
the imperious need of renewing the acts which were
formerly the source of pleasure, and which no longer
procure that pleasure, of avoiding every effort, of
allowing oneself to live in the repetition of easy and
uniform acts which are of but little value but which
have cost nothing."

We readily see that the animal is in general con-
tent with such pleasure; the predominance of its
instinctive over its intellectual activity, of auto-
matism over repetition and invention, makes this
almost inevitable. It always experiences pleasure
in play, perhaps because there is in animal activity
something akin to human activity properly so
called. In play it tries to vary its pleasures, and
it costs it no effort to attain a new type of pleasure.
The search for the line of minimum resistance is not
very apparent here, to say the least of it; but clearer
is its desire of disclosing its power and of expending
it in pure waste without seeking the satisfaction of
its material needs, except in certain cases, which
are frequent enough it is true, in which the play
has as its object the gratification of the sexual
instinct.

In the same way the child often devotes itself to
work that is painful, considering his strength and
years, to assure himself of that pleasure which is
especially derived from the sentiment of a difficulty
overcome. This sentiment has been of great import-
ance in the intellectual and practical evolution of
man ; so much so that we may see in it, as it were,
one of the constituent emotions of the aesthetic
pleasure. Besides, are not the pleasure of play and

150 THE MORAL INDIVIDUAL.

the aesthetic sentiment closely united, especially in
the origin of civilisation, to the first stage of the
uninterrupted development of an intellect becoming
more and more reasonable, and of an activity be-
coming more and more reflective, intentional, and
voluntary ? ^

71. Risk and Exercise,

We must therefore make a detailed study of the
pleasure which is produced by pursuit and conflict,
a pleasure which gives rise to the love of risk
that plays such an important part in Guyau's
moral theory. The human pleasure of search con-
trasts with the animal misoneism; in our curiosity
there is more than a desire to know how to respond
in an effective manner to our numerous needs; there
is the satisfaction of responding to a tendency natural
to man, a tendency to incessant progress triumphing
over blind resistance. The child likes obstacles, he
creates them for himself, so as to have the pleasure
of surmounting them. Can we forget this valuable
indication of an order of pleasures superior to the
restful pleasures which made such an impression on
Epicurus ?

"Once the fingers are supple," says M. Brunsch-
vicg, "as if they were penetrated by the mechanism of
playing, once the difficulties of the craft are over-
come, then the pianist is able to set himself free to
attend to what affects the mind in playing music,
— the intellect and feeling. Instead of narrowing

^ Chamberlain, o/>, r//., pp. 10-27; James, o/>, ctf,, ii. p. 427;
Ribot, oJ>, cif., p. 198 and pp. 329 ei seq. ; Guyau, Education and
Heredity^ p. 164. — Tr.

RISK AND EXERCISE. 151

little by little the circle of activity, habit allows the
mind, assured of the docility of the organism, to do
its own work and to develop regularly; and the
more it understands the more it can understand."

By the side of these intellectual pleasures, which
may be renewed and widened in proportion as the
sphere of the activity is renewed and widened, are
the social pleasures which also widen the field of
difficulties to be overcome, the sphere of pleasures
that a reasonable being can procure for himself. It
is therefore not a restricted, humble, and mean life —
that kind of stupor which the Epicureans called
apathy — which suits man's nature; it is the widest
possible life, the boundaries of which the scientific,
aesthetic, and social activity is incessantly moving
farther and farther back, surrounding it with mov-
ing horizons which we know must become more
and more distant, to procure again and again an
infinite number of new pleasures and new joys. To
the question, What are the inferior and what are the
superior joys ? we can therefore answer without
hesitation : — the inferior joys are those which, ever
restricting the field of human activity, create needs
from which man cannot free himself to taste other
joys. Higher joys are, on the contrary, those which
never enslave man, which procure for him ample and
fruitful satisfaction, and cause him to live with the
utmost possible intensity in the widest and most
varied environment. The idea of these joys crowns
our conception of the moral ideal from the psycho-
logical point of view.

152 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

The Determinism of Immoral Actions.

72. Crime.

We can now understand how it so frequently
happens that men commit faults or fall into crime.
The tendencies to co-ordinate are so numerous, the
sentiments which ought to predominate have so
little sensible attraction, moral pleasure is so un-
common, and virtue so difficult to realise, that we
ought not to be astonished at the moral poverty of
humanity.

Let us then enter into detail as to the determining
causes of crime or offences : we shall see how errors of
conduct are connected with the defects of our physio-
logical, mental, or social nature, and how unnecessarj^
is the intervention of the vicious choice of free will
to explain the fundamental or accidental mechanism
of man.

The civil law calls every infringement of its pre-
scriptions crime or misdemeanour. Every infringe-
ment of the moral law is an offence; but while the
civil laws are clearly defined, the moral laws are often
indeterminate. We cannot even say that everything
that is contrary to the collective consciousness is a
fault, for this varying opinion of the multitude, to
which those who have a good reputation conform, is
not always such as should be respected or even faith-
fully followed, since it sometimes issues in incon-
sequences, and owing to its variations what was
forbidden yesterday is legalised to-day.

CRIME. 153

By what mark then is an offence to be recognised,
if we cannot always consider as a moral failure what
is a breach of the prescriptions of the collective
conscience, whether these prescriptions are always
formulated in the form of laws, or remain without
formula although still authoritative ?

Most of the actions which we regard as vicious
or defective are only considered as such because they
shock customs, prejudices, ideas accepted without
criticism, and the sentiments instilled into the multi-
tude by education, tradition, or imitation. In most
cases, that which is considered as obligatory takes
its necessity from the custom which transforms into
rigorous duties transitory and often equivocal rules
of conduct. Since the duty is not easy to determine,
the fault is also difficult to define. So far, we have
always reasoned on the hypothesis of a moral
necessity to act according to human nature both
psychological and sociological, and to give in con-
sequence a rational continuation to the natural de-
velopment of our being — granting that it is impos-
sible to adopt a line of conduct which does not
take into account the requirements of human
nature.

Fault may therefore be defined in a very general
manner as every action contrary to our nature and
to social evolution. Vice is therefore the habit of
realising acts which are related to a conduct to
which the psycho-sociological study of man can give
no sanction. But these ideas are in both cases still
too vague.

Conduct must be systematic. When we speak
of a line of conduct, we are as a rule expressing
by means of a metaphor the bond which exists

154 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

between the different stages of an activity as
methodic as the moral activity should be. Given
that moral action is a voluntarj^ act, or the habitual
reproduction of a voluntary act, and that every act
of this nature is only such by reason of the inter-
vention of the character in deliberation and choice^
and that it therefore flows from the agent's per-
sonality, one and identical with itself, does it not
follow that conduct ought to be one and identical
with itself, Uke the ego, whose unity does not prevent
complexity, and whose identity does not prevent
development ? It is the most essential characteristic
tendencies which remain identical in the agent, and
it is the manifestations of these tendencies which
remain identical in the conduct. But it is impossible
for contradictory acts to be accomplished at the
same moment, and at two different moments the
acts accomplished cannot show by their radical
opposition that they do not form part of the same
future.

Conduct, however, may be, as we have seen, at
once systematically and profoundly vicious. The man
who persists in pursuing his evil courses presents
neither mental instability nor anything abnormal
from the psychological point of view. The mark
of his bad conduct will therefore no longer be a
fault of intrinsic systematisation, but an incurable
discord with the state of society in which he lives.
No doubt it may happen that a man of the highest
moral worth, a Socrates, for example, may find him-
self out of harmony with the social system of his
time; but the discord is but transitory, and it is
bound to disappear with the improvement of an
environment which at first is unsympathetic, and

CRIME AND THE CRIMINAL. 153

then, little by little, places itself in harmony with
the conduct of the virtuous man. Even if harmony
is not always established, at any rate it can always
be established; and the sociologist who knows
the determinism of social facts, who can foresee^
as far as one ever can foresee, the course of events,
may assert that conduct is good when it can be
reconciled with one of the possible social systems
in the near future or in a future which at the present
moment is in the way of realisation.

Conduct is therefore reprehensible, because it is
either intrinsically unsystematic, contradictory, or un-
co-ordinated, now or in its future, or because it is in
contradiction with the psychological and sociological
laws of nature and of the future. Because it is such,
we may assert with the utmost confidence that it
deprives the agent of a lasting happiness, and of that
moral joy which, as we have defined it, can never
destroy the aptitude for higher joys.

We shall now go into detail, and endeavour to
discover the causes of the immorality which is re-
vealed by offences.

73. Crime and the Criminal}

Shall we class faults according to their gravity
from the legal, from the psychological, or from
the sociological point of view? For these three
points of view are different. The fault in the eyes
of the legislator and the judge is grave or light,
according as it more or less chills the social con-
science— ^that is to say, as long as it conceals a

^ Galton*s Human Faculty^ p. 61.

156 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

will in more or less marked opposition to the collec-
tive sentiment, tradition, morals, and to the spirit
of the law. But the consideration of these senti-
ments, of these traditions, and of this spirit partakes
of an eminently conservative tendency; this is be-
cause the care of preserving ancient customs was
predominant among the Jews; and at Athens, for
instance, they compelled Socrates to drink hemlock
and stoned the reformers, although their acts may
have hardly been considered serious from the moral
point of view.

An offence in the eyes of the sociologist is only
serious when, as we have seen, it risks the destruction
of the social equilibrium and the continuity of the
collective future ; in the eyes of the psychologist it
is only serious when it is injurious to the mental
well-being, the stability of the mental life, and the
regularity of the psychic evolution. The moralist,
who has the interests of both the psychologist and
of the sociologist to bear in mind, cannot make
an abstraction of the person, and if he cannot
abstain from considering the individual in the
social environment, he cannot do otherwise than
see the act in the agent, and conceive of the action,
on one side with its social effects, and on the
other with its psychological and sociological
factors.

That is why, instead of classing crimes and mis-
demeanours according to the gravity attached to
them by the law, or even according to the social
institutions injured by the delinquent, contemporary
criminologists endeavour to make a classification of
criminals. Lombroso^ makes of the criminal an

^ Havelock Ellis, op. ci!,^ p. 36.— Tr.

CRIME AND THE CRIMINAL. 157

abstract being, analogous, as Ferri remarks, to
Quetelet's "average man." His delinquent is a
synthesis of the vices, faults, aptitudes, deformi-
ties or anomalies observable in the different types,
different enough for us to oppose to the illus-
trious Italian anthropologist the work of Gall,
Frdgier, Ferrus, Despine, Maudsley, Morselli, Sergi,
and Ferri, among the numerous band who have tried
to establish a classification of criminals. Gall dis-
tinguished between the impulsive and the instinctive,
originally vicious; Fr^gier, in his reflections on the
memoirs of Vidocq, separated the professional from
the chance or necessitous thief. E. Ferri recalls
the enumeration made by Du Camp (without any
scientific basis, let me remark), of the many varieties
of the low-class thief and the swell mob. Ferrus
classed delinquents according to their intellectual
development: i, those who have moderate intelli-
gence and bad congenital tendencies; 2, those who
have ordinary intelligence, but are only addicted to
debauchery, vagabondage, and crime from mental
inertia and weakness of the moral sense; 3, those
who from defective cerebral organisation are unfit
for any serious occupation, whether they are per-
verse, energetic, or intelligent, doing wrong in a
systematic manner, or those who are vicious,
obtuse, and incapable of resisting evil impulses, or
finally, those who are criminal without having any
notion of the nature of their acts. Despine drew a
distinction between criminals cool, impulsive, morally
abnormal, with or even without mental alienation.
Huret, who has made a special study of convicts,
divides them into three groups: the non-vicious, who
have acted under the influence of a violent and

158 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

sudden emotion; the rebels, who are masters of the
art of crime ; and those who are dull and brutalised,
and who are sometimes dominated by their more
fundamentally vicious companions.

Ferri has endeavoured to show the existence of
two great classes of criminals — the criminal born,
the incorrigible, in whom crime is a habit, and the
occasional delinquents, in whom the anatomical and
psycho -pathological characteristics of Lombroso's
criminal are more or less absent. In 1880 he pro-
posed five categories connected with the two prin-
cipal types — the insane; the criminal born; habitual,
occasional, and impulsive delinquents.

M. le Bon has also established the existence of
two fundamental classes, that of criminals of here-
ditary disposition ^ (criminal-born, impulsive, of
weak character, and intelligent, but deprived of
moral sense), and that of criminals in conse-
quence of an acquired lesion of the moral sense
(through alcoholism, general paralysis, cerebral
lesions, etc.).

M. Laccassagne distinguishes between criminals
by sentiment or by instinct, vicious from heredity or
acquired habit, occasional or impulsive delinquents,
and insane delinquents.

It is useless to multiply the analyses of so many
classifications made from so many different points of
view, among which those of Maudsley, Garofalo,
Sergi, Yvernfes, are distinguished by etiological,
psychological, or sociological considerations which,
taken separately, have an importance of their
own.^

^ Vide a complete and impartial exposition of these theories in Ferri,
Sociolcgia criminaU (4th edition, 1900).

CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY. I59

74. Classification and Descriptive Summary.

From their comparative examination, says E.
Ferri, it follows : first, that we must give up the old
conception 'of the criminal of uniform type ; second,
that the distinction between the occasional criminal
who may be cured, and the delinquent by instinct
and by hereditary tendency who is incorrigible, is
generally accepted, as well as the subdivision into
occasional and impulsive delinquents, the criminal-
born and the insane criminal.

It therefore seems that the classification which is
based on the etiology of misdemeanour and crime
should serve as a basis for the description of the
essential characters of each criminal type, whether
those characters are psychological or sociological.

The criminal born is presented as savage, brutal,
and knavish, incapable of distinguishing theft or
crime from any kind of honest activity; he is a
delinquent, according to Fr^gier,^ just as others are
good workers, dreading pain more than he is affected
by it when it is inflicted, for he considers a prison
as an asylum where his subsistence is assured in
idleness. He is always an impenitent recidivist.

The habitual criminal is a weak character, who
has often experienced a morbid impulse, and has
been encouraged to the repetition of crime, sometimes
by the impunity that is assured to acts but slightly
criminal, and sometimes owing to bad company.
Imprisonment, life in common with beings without
morality, has been fatal to his moral sense, and has
perverted or completely destroyed it. Imprisonment
in a cell has stupefied him, alcoholism has brutalised

^ Les classes dangJreuses, p. 175, Brussels, 1840.

l6o THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

him, and the fact that society will have none of him
from the time of his first lapses, has thrown him
into idleness and exposed him to every kind of
temptation.^ His characteristics are precocity and
a tendency to the repetition of crime. This type is
that of many young fellows, morally abandoned by
their families or brought up in the midst of vice, and
it is men like him, as the numbers of this class
increase, who make juvenile criminality more and
more a subject of anxiety.

75. The Criminal by Accident^

The criminal by accident and the criminal by
impulse are distinct from the criminal-born and from
the delinquent in whom crime has become habitual
from a kind of impotence to resist certain impulses;
the psycho-pathological nature of which is evident.

The former experience no repugnance in doing
wrong ; the latter do it sometimes in spite of their
repugnance, or at any rate in spite of their habitual
tendency to abstain from offensive and criminal
actions. They usually present, under most circum-
stances in their lives, the character of normal beings
of variable intelligence. However, when we examine
them closely, we quickly discover in them a weak
will, a mental instability, sometimes generalised and
sometimes purely intellectual or emotional ; and it is
precisely this lack of strength of character which
is the cause of their not resisting the " psychological
storm," as Ferri calls the disorder of mind caused by
a strong passion, by sudden impulse due to instinctive

^ E. Ferri, op, cit. , p. 228.

■* Lombroso, The Female Offender^ chap, xiii.— Tr.

THE CRIMINAL BY ACCIDENT. l6l

sympathy, to imitation or to moral contagion, or
finally to the generally subconscious obsession which
slowly brings on the inevitable crisis ih which some-
times both the honour and the morality of an indi-
vidual are wrecked. The impulsive are sometimes
recognised by their continual exaltation, their irrita-
bility, and their promptitude to re-act violently even
under slight stimuli ; and at other times again they
are merely extravagant in their sentiments, manners,
language, re-actions, and tendencies on some single
point. They are shrewd as far as all other questions
are concerned ; they show lack of judgment, lack of
tact, and lack of restraint, whenever the object
of their passion is the cause of it ; they are ready
to burst into a fury if we "touch the tender
spot.'"

The impulsive and the accidental delinquent may
frequently fall into the repetition of crime, contrary to
the opinion, of certain criminologists, who are parti-
cularly anxious to place the two principal classes of
criminals in contrast with respect to this point.
Now nothing guarantees them against the involun-
tary return to fresh offences, but after each lapse they
again show repentance, a sincere regret for the evil
action of which their weakness is the cause, and
which they voluntarily attribute to fate, to a force
greater than themselves, so conscious are they of
not having acted in accordance with the fundamental
tendencies of their being. There is therefore every
reason to distinguish them clearly from the brutes
whose moral sense has been obliterated by heredity
or bad habit. But should not both of these classes
be brought into closer relation to the case of the
insane criminal ?

l62 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

76. Insane Criminals.^

Do not these form a very complex class, from
which might be established numerous subdivisions
corresponding to every possible type of immorality ?
Should we not find in this class the analogue not
only of the born criminal, of the criminal by
habit, of the impulsive and of the accidental delin-
quent, but also of every being who has vices less
odious than those of the criminal, or who simply
and accidentally commits faults and immoral
actions ? Are not all the facts of immorality cases
of more or less attenuated " moral insanity " ?

By the words "moral insanity" we generally
understand a particular kind of mental infirmity,
which especially consists in a defect or a disturbance
of the moral sense, without the intellectual functions
being necessarily affected; that is why Prichard^
called it moral insanity with much more accuracy
than Verga, who called it reasoning mania. For it
is not so much a question of the preservation of the
power of reasoning, which in certain cases may be
weakened, as of the weakness of the power of acting
in a rational, systematic manner. Certain Anglo-
American alienists have preferred to the names of
moral insanity, moral imbecility, or reasoning mania,
that of affective insanity, the term which is used
by Savage and Hughes.^

^ Despine, Psychologie Naturelle, ii. pp. 169 et seq.; Maudsley,
Pathology of Mind; Art. ** Criminal Anthropology," by H. Ellis,
Dictionary of Psychological Medicine ; Guyau, EduccUion et Hiriditi^
p. 94; Lombroso, The Female Offender^ chaps, xvii., xviii.; Maudsley,
Body and Mind, pp. 62 et seq. — Tr.

2 Cf. Ribot, op. cit., pp. 300, 301.— Tr.

^ Maudsley, Responsibility in Mental Disease, chap, v., Part I. — Tr.

IMMORALITY OF THE IMBECILE. 163

As a matter of fact, moral madness seems to be no-
thing but a morbid condition corresponding to the
numerous relations of conduct with the varied forms
of mental alienation. There are no doubt especially
interesting cases in which with a remarkable activity
of the intellectual functions by a curious anomaly
is combined exceptionally vicious conduct ; but how
can we establish a distinction between these cases and
those in which we see progressively an ineptitude to
moral life, associating itself with lower and lower de-
grees of intellectual life ? Is there not a continuous
series of which pure moral imbecility is the last term
while ordinary imbecility or idiocy is the first term ?
Can we state an essential difference between the im-
morality of the idiot and that of the " moral madman " ?

77. Immorality of the Imbecile}

To the brutality, the knavery, and the idleness
of the born criminal correspond the tendencies of
certain imbeciles who are, as M. Sollier^ points out,
wicked, idle, misguided, anti-social beings, and, as
M. Legrain^ puts it, sly and vicious creatures, im-
pelled by a kind of destructive instinct (although
certain of them may be gentle, kind, and bene-
volent).^ Now ought we not to consider idiocy and
imbecility as the inferior degrees of that degeneration

^ Guyau, Education et Heriditiy p. 94 ; Maudsley, Body and Mindy
pp. 65 etseq,^ and Responsibility in Menial Disease, pp. 179 et seq. — Tr.

2 Psychologie de V Idiot et de V Imbecile, Alcan, 1891.

' Du Dilire chez les Degeneres,

* D. Fran9ois . . . imbecile aged forty, watches with the greatest
care' over his idiot brother and sister ; he lavishes on them the most
assiduous attention, and shows exemplary kindness to everybody.
(Observation taken in the asylum, Alen$on. )

164 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

which causes certain insane people to have a moral
future analogous to the abnormal development of
the hardened criminal, persisting in immorality in
spite of even the most severe pain ? Between the
imbecile and the " moral madman " there is only a
difference of degree, no difference in nature. The
former is degenerate, because the check to his
development that he has undergone has deprived
him of certain intellectual faculties, and at the same
time of higher affections and of every normal moral
sentiment. The latter is a degenerate in whom the
check of development has only affected a smaller
number of mental functions, so that higher modes
of the intelligence have appeared, but the correspond-
ing modes of sensibility and activity have been
unable to effect their normal evolution. M. Magnan
considers the imbecile as " an idiot, in whom certain
centres of the anterior cerebral region have been left
unaffected,'/ and who is therefore " capable of ideo-
motor determinations,'' capable of "penetrating into
the domain of intellectual control," and of raising him-
self sometimes so far as to possess curious aptitudes,
until he becomes what has been called a "partial
genius." 1

If he only lacks moral aptitudes he no longer pre-
sents the characters of ordinary imbecility. There is
nothing in him now but " moral imbecility." Need
his immorality be explained otherwise than in those
cases in which the degree of intelligence is much less ?

78. Intelligent Degenerates,

The intelligent degenerate, like the habitual
criminal, is precocious in vice; he does wrong for

^ Magnan, Lemons cliniques sur les Maladies mentales, Alcan, 1897.

INTELLIGENT DEGENERATES. 165

wrong's sake with a kind of morbid enjoyment. He
is proud of his increasing perversity, and he does not
hide his immorality under a bushel. Prompt to
imitate bad actions, he contracts from an early age
vicious habits, which will be so many centres of
attraction for further depraved habits.

B. R.^ is eighteen years of age: he belongs to
an unbalanced family; his father is alcoholic, his
mother is a prostitute; his eldest brother, at present
a deserter, has been sent to a disciplinary regiment ;
another brother is confined in a house of correction.
From the age of nine he tried to rival his mother's
immorality. From this resulted a morbid tendency
to the satisfaction of the sexual instinct, which
impelled this youth at the age of thirteen to various
brutal assaults upon women and girls. At present
B. R. . . . has no pleasure left to him except that
which he experiences in relating his deeds of sexual
perversity; he shows no remorse, he has no con-
sciousness of the repulsion that is inspired by his
assaults, and by the whole of his evil past. On the
28th May 1900, he succeeds in making his escape
for several hours, and commits new crimes. On
the 22nd April he walks in front of a group of women
and girls whose attention he wishes to attract. He
does not succeed, and ascertains with disgust that a
megalo-maniac has much more chance of attracting
the attention of this group of women. He then pro-
ceeds to shout, gesticulate, jump, and dance about on
the ground; then being seized as it were with a fit

' The observations on this case of moral insanity are due to the
•kindness of Dr. Tourniac, Medical Superintendent of the asylum at
Auxerre, who has been good enough to allow me to share in his
researches on mental alienation.

1 66 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

of fury, he strikes his keepers, breaks the panels of*
the doors, and then calms down suddenly when he
finds out that at last they have noticed him. Several
times, and here again simply to attract attention,
he pretended to commit suicide, and at last one
day, the victim of his own antics, he really hanged
himself.

This, then, is the case of a degenerate in whom the
sexual instinct, combined with vanity, played the
principal r6le. He experienced neither affection, nor
modesty, nor restraint, nor religious feeling, nor the
aesthetic sense. He was a knave, a hypocrite,
revengeful, incapable of feeling regret or remorse,
insensible to reproaches, to contempt, or to affec-
tionate words. He was for a considerable period in
a house of correction, and his fundamental worthless-
ness was increased by his contact with numerous
little good-for-nothings, to whom he admiringly
related his prowess. He especially frequented the
society of adults, so that he might learn from them
as much wickedness as possible. Now this is a
monster from the moral point of view, but a monster
with an intellectual side. Why is he so profoundly
vicious, if not because his physical and mental con-
stitution, his cerebral capacity, have not allowed the
development of those affectionate, aesthetic, and
social sentiments, without which, as we have seen,
morality cannot exist ? If he may serve as an
example of the delinquent from vicious habit, do we
not see that criminals of this type may, at any
rate for the most part, be fairly compared to the
insane, whether criminals or not, whom congenital
or acquired degeneration has shut up in our
asylums ?

THE UNBALANCED. 167

79. The Unbalanced.

There is among the criminals of whom we speak a
considerable number of people who show signs of
elevated sentiments, and in whom it would seem
there is no defect in that mental development which
permits us to judge sanely and to feel keenly the
immorality of criminal actions. These are compar-
able to other insane cases of which Fr. . . . may
furnish a type.

Fr. ... is the eldest of a family of eight children,
which does not contain any other disequilibrated
member, but of which two or three are of doubtful
morality. He is a well-educated man who has
received an excellent secondary education, and who
thoroughly understands the arguments one opposes
to his own, and who can engage in discussion with
considerable sagacity, but who obviously uses his
intellectual aptitudes to justify the acts he commits
after they have been committed. He abused, the
confidence of a post-office employ^ to make him
hand over letters addressed to two of his brothers
with whom he had had some disagreement. He
wrote threatening letters to people, who were not
much troubled thereby, and who thought, not with-
out reason perhaps, that they were attempts at
blackmail. He attracted to himself the attention of
the public by foolish or criminal acts with the object
of embarrassing his family because they had refused
him money. Fr. ... is therefore, from the practical
point of view, an anti-social being, a delinquent who
would probably not refrain from crime if he had the
opportunity. On several occasions he has threatened
cruel vengeance to his keepers if he should ever get

l68 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

out of the asylum. He is revengeful and spiteful;
in fact, all his acts belie his words; but as he has
considerable intelligence, he explains all his antics in
the most astonishing way; he knows how to present
them in the most favourable light, and if he cannot
justify them completely, at any rate he diminilshes
their importance in such a way that he thinks he is
entirely free from blame, and therefore experiences
no remorse. Now, if we look into this closely, we
see that the sentiments he expounds so brilliantly,
and with which one would almost think he was
saturated, are only skin deep. He is never really
moved, either by suffering or by the happiness of
others; he is incapable of a generous action or of a
disinterested movement. He has an abstract con-
ception of the sentiments of which he speaks, but he
no longer experiences them. Is not this a remark-
able case of the failure of the affective part of a
being, much anterior to the intellectual failure which
no doubt will later ensue ?

And may not this observation serve to explain how
criminals without any apparent mental anomaly are
scarcely more able than imbeciles, or inferior de-
generates, to re-act against their gross appetites and
their increasing tendencies to vicious and immoral
activity ?

80. The Criminal by Passion.^

We now pass on to a class intermediary between
that of criminals from inveterate, vicious habit, and

^ Havelock Ellis, The Criminal^ p. 2 ; Hoffbauer, Mid, Ug, relcUive
aux alihth, 1837, pp. 259-270; Fere, Pathology of Einotiofts^ p. 506;
Ribot, op, cit.y p. 301 ; Lombroso, The Female Offender ^ chap. xv. ;
Maudsley, Responsibility in Mental Disease, chap. v. — Tr.

THE CRIMINAL BY PASSION. 169

that of occasional criminals, that of the criminal by
passion, whether obsessed or not. We can scarcely
refuse to recognise the relationship of these young
evil-doers, of these beings who are so often
dangerous, and who suddenly and unexpectedly
commit the greatest crimes, to certain cases of
insanity, of which the girl PI. . . . will exhibit to us
both the character and the mode of action.

PI. ... is a girl of fifteen, who on the 20th of
July 1899 voluntarily set fire to a rick of hay,^ and
who on the i8th August in the same year tried to
suffocate the child of her master, aged thirteen
months. She did not confess these crimes until
the 26th August, having done all she could until
then to escape suspicion. Since then it seems she
has experienced no remorse, has shown no regret,
and when questioned on the subject of her acts, she
speaks of them with astounding placidity; at most
she is annoyed because she is questioned so often.
She has stated to the magistrate that she was not at
all affected when she committed the second crime,
and witnesses affirm that she showed no emotion
when she was told of its discovery.

Now what is most surprising is that she had
never shown the least sentiment of hostility to her
masters, and that she admitted she had always been
well treated by them. She asserts that she did
nothing from anger or from a spirit of vengeance.

' Pyromania is sometimes found unassociated with other forms of
mental disorder. But it is also found in association with thievish
impulses, suicidal tendencies, religious mania, and with disorders of
the sexual functions. — Vide Maudsley, Responsibility in Mental Disease^
pp. 81, 161, 163; Ribot, op, cit»y p. 225; Morselli, Suicide^ pp. 123,
151.— Tr.

170 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

and it really seems that never having been re-
proached, never having suffered the slightest annoy-
ance in the house, she could not have been urged to
these crimes through any malicious feeling.

But if she felt no hatred, and if she did not act
under the influence of anger, at any rate she was not
restrained by any feeling of affection, for she shows
herself quite incapable of experiencing such a feeling.
She does not like animals. She experiences none of
the pleasures of children of her own age, or even of
younger children. She declares that she has never
strangled birds or drowned cats; but if it were done
in her presence she would be indifferent, and to
everything she shows the same indifference. She
did not want to go to a concert: "it would not be
unpleasant, but at the same time would not please
her." She would not put herself out either to see a
beautiful picture or to hear beautiful singing.

This absence of interest in most of the objects
which attract the attention of the normal child has
turned PI. . . . into a naughty school-girl, learning
nothing and remembering nothing of the lessons she
received. She knows perfectly well, however, that
certain actions are dishonest or criminal ; she under-
stands that there are crimes which are repugnant to
the conscience of most people. A proof of this is,
that she does not ignore the misconduct of her
mother; that she knows quite well why her father
left his family and went to live away; and yet she
refuses to give the least explanation on this point.
It is not that she disapproved personally of her
mother's acts, but rather, that she learned by experi-
ence and since her childhood that it was not a thing
which ought to be talked about; and in the same

THE CRIMINAL BY PASSION. I7I

way she does not wish to speak of her own crimes :
she pretends to remember nothing at all, not even
the name of her late master.^

The indifference in matters of morality which
seems to us well established in the present case,
has permitted the sudden rise and development of
impulses. PL . . . has many times confessed that
she had no idea of suffocating the child when cross-
ing the threshold of the court, through which she had
to pass from the stable (where she had been quietly
milking with her mistress and another servant), in
order to reach the dwelling, where she was going to
a small cistern. She went into the room where
her little victim was sleeping and placed the infant
between two feather-beds; she removed a pane of
glass which was almost out of the window, carefully
opened the window, and left it open to encourage
the idea of the criminal being a miscreant from
without, an enemy of the house. During the course
of the day she went to the cellar and upset the butter
and the milk further to confirm the notion (and in
this she was quite successful) that the act was that of
a stranger. The impulse was not therefore followed
by forgetfulness; it did not form part of a moment
in which the consciousness was less clear, in which
the personality underwent a transitory change, or in
which was produced, as it were, a fugitive mental
alienation. The impulse is easily integrated while
it lasted, and although it seems inexplicable when
we take all the antecedents into account, it ex-
plains a whole series of consequences: the new
crime, and the period of long dissimulation, which
does not, however, seem to cause distress to the

^ Cf. Havelock Ellis, op. cit., pp. 7, 211.— Tr.

172 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTION.

young criminal, in spite of the suspicions which were
entertained by the servant, who alone was wiser in
this respect than the other people in the house.
The incendiary and homicidal impulses have on all
points the same characteristics. There is no hysteri-
form character, no somnambulism, nothing but
mental instability and a fairly complete absence
of the social sentiments; the causes of the crime
are therefore deficient rather than efficient.

And so it is with the faults committed by most
degenerates; such as, for instance, the impulsive who
strike their relations or the friends of the house
rather than strangers or enemies. From the moral
point of view they are little better than the weak-
minded, the imbeciles, or idiots, who have no sys-
tematic conduct, who are more or less incapable
of co-ordinating their desires or actions; who have
undergone an arrested development, not only in their
intellectual faculties, but in their sentiments, tend-
encies, and aptitude to experience emotions; who,
in short, would be led to automatic and instinctive
rather than to intelligent and reflective activity, but
who have unfortunately neither the fixed and power-
ful instincts of the animal, nor the still tenacious
habits of the insane, nor of those men of the world
who are really automxata as far as politeness and
good manners are concerned.

According to M. Dallemagne, "given that every
individual act of the normal life, and therefore every
social manifestation, affects directly or indirectly the
three great functions, the nutritive, the genetic, and
the intellectual," crime is due to the unsatiated or
incompletely satiated needs which refer to these
great functions. "The unsatisfied functions create

THE CRIMINAL BY PASSION. 173

in their respective centres a tension which objectively
renders the consecutive discharge more violent and
more spontaneous, and subjectively gives rise to the
whole gamut of sensations, which range from the
simple feeling of indefinable uneasiness to the pain
which overclouds and obscures the consciousness.'*
This, in many cases, is the explanation even of
morbid impulses; but in crime there is something
else besides impulses, something more than the auto-
matism of different centres; there is a functional
incapacity of certain centres, the temporary or de-
finitive inhibition of certain functions, and the non-
co-ordination of certain others — in short, mental
instability, with the resultant clouding over or pro-
gressive disappearance of the representations, tend-
encies, and sentiments which are indispensable to
mental and moral equilibrium. Hence there is no
reasoning issuing in moral conclusions: there is no
longer any room except by accident for subtle cal-
culations determined by an affection or an inclination
of an inferior order.

The misdemeanours of a vagabond life form the
simplest type of the immoral effects of pathological
instability. There is no family sentiment, no love of
work, respect for the law, for authority, for human
dignity ; no socialj aesthetic, and religious tendencies
— if ever these different affective methods have existed
in the mind of the vagabond; there is nothing but a
morbid love of change of residence, and of living on
the proceeds of chance.

How many bad habits and tendencies then spring
into being, which are with difficulty restrained! for
they meet with no obstacle of a moral nature, because
such obstacles either have not bQQa formed, or, if

174 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

formed, have disappeared. Thus the danger that
society runs from these vagabonds is considerable,
although, taken individually, these poor wretches are
rather amorphic than wicked.

8i. The Obsessed.

If we now leave these degenerates, if we pass on
from moral imbecility, characterised as we have seen
by weakness of the affective factors of the moral
determination, we still find the impulsive and the
obsessed, but of a new type — namely, those who
resist for a greater time their morbid tendencies, who
see their immoral or absurd character, but who ex-
perience no relief until they have yielded to them.
Are not many criminal or immoral actions the result
of obsessions? We are the less able to deny this
because the latter are for the most part subconscious,
and are concealed from the eyes of the psycho-
logist by the impulsive movement, censured as soon
as it takes place, but inevitable. When they become
conscious they are already too strong to be effec-
tively met.

X. ... is prosecuted for indecent assault. His
" exhibitionist " mania takes place at almost regular
periods and under well-determined circumstances;
he has, as it were, gusts of anger, and passes through
a kind of crisis which is excessively painful ; he loses
his self-control, and gives free play to manifestations
which cause him no gratification but the sense of
relief from his obsession.

Sometimes the struggle against the obsession lasts
for months; sometimes for a few days, hours, or
minutes. Some people experience an irresistible

THE OBSESSED. I75

impulse to insult their relations, to strike their best
friend, to throw their glass or their napkin at the
face of their host, or to break some trifling object.
Beings such as these occupy an intermediary zone
between moral sanity and affective madness.^ To
give a satisfactory explanation of their conduct we
must evidently connect it with that of the "fixed
ideas," which are so numerous in hysteria, neuras-
thenia, and all those forms of the insanity of the
degenerates who used to be called monomaniacs.

It seems that the "fixed idea" arises from the
pathology of attention.^ In normal attention, an
idea, a sentiment, or an image is maintained for
a longer or shorter period in the clearness of con-
scious apperception; during this period it inhibits
every mental process which would challenge its
supremacy; by its duration it assures its own dis-
tinctness, and it only disappears when the repre-
sentation which it has announced or prepared has
arrived, and into which it is converted, as it were,
by a blending of the successive moments of the
conscious life.

For this to be so, all that is required is that a very
strong tendency shall dominate the mental future;
for the successive representations to be as rich as the
normal adaptations of a being to its environment
demand, the dominating tendencies of the mind

^ Cf. Cull^re, Les Frontieres de la Folic, Paris, 1888.

2 I can only give in these pages a summary of the results I have
stated at length in my volume on Mental Instability (Alcan, 1899).
See, in particular, pp. 206 et seq., on Morbid Stability.

On the *' insistent" idea, z^/V/*? James, op. cit., ii. 549; Ribot, op. cil.,
p. 226 ; Guyau, Education et Wriditi^ pp. 44, 56 ; Janet, VAuto-
tnatisme Psychologique^ pp. 428 et seq., where will be found many
bibliographical references; also vide his Nhroses^ etc., below. — Tr.

176 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

must be fruitful, and form a solid body of appeti-
tions, numerous and in harmony with the different
conditions of a suitable existence. But if these
tendencies no longer form a harmonious whole, if
they are, for instance, dissociated by those "emotion-
shocks," of which MM. Janet and Raymond have
shown the sinister power, there is no longer any
place for normal attention.

It then happens that the unco-ordinated tendencies
dominate in turn the conscious future, and other
tendencies blindly endeavour to replace them, and
persist in the subconscious domain, while the first
promptly disappear without having had any lasting
action.

Among the tendencies which remain in the mind
and increase in power, we must place in the first
rank those which have their basis in the organic
sensations, such as, for example, the sexual instinct,
which also gives an explanation of the frequency of
the obsessions and impulses connected with this
predominant appetite in animal life.

Let a favourable occasion present itself, and im-
mediately the subconscious tendency, however sub-
ordinate it may have been, becomes sovereign and
determines the irresistible impulse. If it meets some
obstacle, the subject becomes more and more con-
scious of it, and while it thus has a kind of demi-
apperception, the obsession lasts and a painfiil
struggle ensues. If the obstacle is very great the
tendency to struggle is forgotten, although it is ready
to reappear. That is why obsessions are so varied
both in their period and in their psychological effect.

M. P. Janet admits that the morbid stability to
which the fixed idea is reduced is certainly the

EXAGGERATION OF GOOD SENTIMENTS. l^^

consequence of the disappearance of the normal
attention. He always gives the name of mental
disaggregation to this psychological discontinuity,
which, as he himself agrees, favours and permits im-
pulses and obsessions. This I have preferred to call
mental instability; the name, however, matters but
little.^ In the same way, it is to mental instability
and to the discontinuity of our psychological life
consequent on the downfall of our normal tendencies,
that the misdemeanours and crimes to which our im-
pulsives and occasional delinquents are attracted are
due. Desire only becomes passion, and only acquires
excessive and afterwards tyrannical power, by the
inconstancy of the appetitions and repulsions which
normally serve as "antagonistic reducers."^

82. Exaggeration of Good Sentiments.

There are degenerates who become misdemeanants
by the morbid exaggeration of sentiments which are
praiseworthy enough, no doubt, but which encourage
in them an excessive susceptibility. Such is the case
of B.E., a young fellow of thirty-two years of age, who
has twice been condemned to ten years' imprison-
ment, and was confined on the last occasion in the
criminal asylum of Gaillon, from which he emerged
with the reputation of being violent and dangerous.
At present he shows great sensibility, a keen desire
to lead an honest life, and a real aptitude for the
experience of the most delicate emotions; he would
seem to be inspired with lofty sentiments. He also

^ Cf. Pierre Janet, Nivroses et Idees fixes, pp. 34, 53, 68, 217, 2i8.
^ Cf. Instabilite vientale, p. 216.

12

178 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

shows intelligence and good will, and an inclination to
the good, to generosity, to sociability, and to affection.
One is astonished to hear a criminal who has been
punished so severely eagerly expressing the desires
of the most perfectly honourable man ; and one asks
oneself how he could have been the accomplice in
the first place of a theft, in the second of a brutal
assault, and finally of acts of violence due to sus-
picion of the administration of the penitentiary and
of the alienists who were attending him.

But one quickly finds out that he is extremely sus-
ceptible. The slightest thing depresses him. One
feels that he is not made for an existence such as
ours, in which there are so many disappointments,
so much distrust, and in which so much injustice
ought to be quickly and rapidly forgotten. He hates
society, which has made of him a thing degraded
for ever both in his own eyes and in the eyes of
others. At eighteen years of age he was convicted
as a vagabond and sentenced to a week's imprison-
ment. Ever since then, he says, he has done no
good. He was ashamed to present himself any-
where to ask for work, and he became the prey of
a few scoundrels who made him their accomplice.

When overcome by excitement, he cannot regain his
self-control; he is aboulic, he cannot resist; and he is
violent because he is aboulic, and because the re-
actions of anger find in him no "antagonistic re-
ducer." Thus he ended by being placed under the
ban of society.

In his case the occasional and the impulsive
criminal are united. Now the facility with which
the moral vertigo takes possession of him is really
remarkable; a word of encouragement or of praise

MORAL VERTIGO. I79

makes him capable of extreme devotion, and in
certain cases makes of him a fanatic. But any sign
of disapprobation depresses him, and then for the
merest trifle, for a joke or some foolery of his com-
panions or his keepers, he loses his head and strikes
or breaks with a violence of which one could hardly
believe him capable. At the slightest contradiction,
or at the least sign of satisfaction with him, he is
beside himself with gloom or delight. He is very
"suggestible,'* and the reading of books — almost
children's books — such as the works of Jules Verne,
made him delirious while he was staying at Gaillon.
He thought he had written them, and he vaguely
imagined a phantom ship which was destined to
assure victory to the French fleet because of the
terror it would inspire in the navy of the enemy.

83. Moral Vertigo}

We see that such an aptitude to vividly experience
the most different impressions, and to give way to
every kind of suggestion, would make of the best-
intentioned beings misdemeanants and criminals;
and then in poverty, for example, the opportunity
presents itself to them to secure some temporary
comfort, and the idea of theft and murder fascinates
them. They forget everything else, they no longer
experience honourable sentiments, they no longer
reflect. It is like a transient mental alienation. On
the other hand, their excessive emotional tendencies
predispose them to fear, anger, exaggerated love, and

^ Havelock Ellis, <?/. ^j^., pp. 17, 91, 2ii, 229; Maudsley, Responsi-
bility in Mental Disease, pp. 59, 64, 132, 170-182; Lombroso, The
FetnaU Offisftder, p. 310.— Tr.

l8o THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

all the violent sentiments of sudden explosions of
passion.

"We are led," says M. Renouvier, "to mark the
common character both of the cases in which the
personality is, as it were, annihilated, its functions
ceasing to be reflective and voluntary on all points at
once, and of those (which, however, we must consider
habitual) in which vertigo has taken place on some
points on which the judgment should exact ripe
reflection and well-informed will, thanks to the
appeal of motives of every kind. But even when
on the watch, and in full possession of reason, who
has not experienced exciting temptations of one
kind or another, temptations which will more and
more tend to lead into the abyss a man whose con-
science would not be thereby affected ? "

It is, in fact, the want of restraint and of personal
control over his owi) states of consciousness which
characterises the degenerate and explains his acts.
An analogous moral vertigo may seize men who are
healthy in mind in certain particular cases in which
there is over-fatigue of the brain. In the same way
it is the excuse for grave or slight misdemeanours; it
furnishes an explanation of suicide, which, unfortu-
nately, is of too frequent occurrence, and which
popular feeling, often apart from all religious belief,
considers as analogous to crime or madness, to such a
degree that the children of a suicide are repeatedly
classed among those who are subject to neuropathic
taint.

It is not generally anger or trouble which causes
the vertigo, as we have said before; it is intellectual
fatigue, excessive emotion, and the struggle against
passions that are too active. The sexual instinct.

THE CRIMINAL TYPE. l8l

unsatisfied or held within bounds for too long a
period, inspires in some young men an unreasoning
depression, which suddenly comes on and as suddenly
disappears; and although this is distinct from
melancholia, it is often fatal in its effect. According
to Laupt, the desire for death comes on by crises
in the middle of a happy life. It arises after a
sensation of complete despair and complete abandon-
ment of every moral energy, coming on almost in-
stantaneously and prostrating the subject. The
impulse of suicide is therefore certainly a case of
moral vertigo. And who has not felt in the course
of his existence that profound discouragement and
that failure of physiological and mental energy which
make us feel for a moment that life is no longer
worth living ? In fact, which of us can be sure that
he will never become either mad or a criminal ?

84. The Criminal Type.

To this assimilation of people who are ordinarily
healthy minded to criminals or lunatics, an objection
may be raised, drawn from the theory according to
which all criminals present the distinctive stigmata
of degenerates.^

Lombroso has, in fact, insisted on the physiological
stigmata of the criminal-born. There would be in
that case an anatomical type which all beings pre-
disposed or even devoted to crime would reproduce
with more or less accuracy; but the presence of
these stigmata in all criminal degenerates has been
denied.

^ Havelock Ellis, op. cit,, pp. 49, 63, 72, 88, 1 02, 112; Lombroso,
The Female Offender, passim. — Tr.

l82 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

"We can prove," say M. Legrain^ and M. Mag-
nan, among others, " that crime can take place with-
out physical stigmata; that individuals who bear the
most significant and monstrous physical features may
have no vicious tendency whatever. . . . The type of
the criminal-born has been scientifically attacked by
MM. Houz6 and Warnots, of the University of
Brussels. The anatomical type of the criminal-born
is a hybrid product formed by the junction of char-
acteristics drawn from different sources. It is an
artificial type which must be rejected. . . . M.
Struelens has only found the stigmata which are the
marks of crime in some three per cent, of some 5000
individuals examined. . . . M. Manouvrier has given
to the physical stigmata of criminals their real value.
He has shown the difference which exists between
a sociological matter such as crime and a physio-
logical matter directly connected with anatomy and
deducible from that science." It can never be denied
that crime has sometimes psychological conditions
closely connected with physiological phenomena,
which may have well-defined relations with ana-
tomical peculiarities. Having admitted that much
in favour of Lombroso's thesis, it only remains to
point out the multitude of cases in which psychic
troubles are not accompanied by sensible physio-
logical disturbances, and a fortiori by anatomical
modifications. Degeneration has an infinite number
of degrees in which very clear stigmata do not appear
at all. On the other hand, all degenerates are not
criminals.

We should lay ourselves open to the charge of

^ ** L' Anthropologic criminelle au Congres de Bruxelles en 1892,"
^ev. Sc.f p. 14.

IMMORAL EFFECTS OF SOLIDARITY. 183

making a great blunder, were we to affirm a pre-
disposition to crime, or to breach of the law, or to
vagabondage, or to suicide, in people of exactly the
same stigmata as those of the greatest criminals,
people, moreover, who, during the whole course of
their existence, have not committed a single criminal
act.

The criminal type is therefore not only, as we
have said above, an entity but a fiction. We simply
find a type of degenerates who are more particularly
to be found in the criminal ranks. There is no
special class of misdemeanant, clearly separated from
the majority of human beings who ordinarily abstain
from breach of the law. Any man may become
temporarily a criminal just as he may become tem-
porarily insane. All that is necessary is that mental
vertigo and morbid instability should be added to
the influence of what we may call the social causes
of crime or madness.

85. Immoral Effects of Solidarity.

Human solidarity may be, as we have seen, a
valuable auxiliary to practical reason, but it may
also be a serious obstacle to virtue. There is a
solidarity of criminals as well as a solidarity of
honourable men. If we belong to a perverted
society whose perverse tendencies are accentuated
day by day by the dissolution and the downfall of
every institution which once was the source of its
grandeur and its power, we can no longer conceive
of lofty aims, or experience tendencies as varied and
as strong, as if we still belonged to progressive
society. We would have to be superhuman to

184 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

struggle successfully against the perversity around
us. The best man ought to be resigned to act only
in the best possible manner under given circum-
stances, without aiming at an absolutely good action.
As for the man whose character is weak, whose
will is feeble, and whose intellect and sensibility
have not been normally developed, he very rapidly
becomes a victim to the surrounding perversity.

Lombroso has remarked that, as a rule, the
criminal hates solitude and cannot live without
companions. The need of entering into relations
with individuals who can guide him, direct him,
and dominate him, constitutes, as Janet has re-
marked, one of the features of the character of the
hysterical and weak-minded subject. Feeble in-
tellects are therefore more exposed than normal
intellects to the pernicious influence of certain
companions, or of certain sects, or of the crowd, or
of morally degraded collectivities. They say that
in Brazil among the half-breeds, who, as a rule,
show a very marked characteristic of hereditary
ferocity, and in whom barbarism seems to increase
as the eifect of a kind of social disequilibrium,
the most monstrous crimes are as a rule committed
by the least intelligent of their number. In places
that are most propitious to the growth of vice, in
the lower quarters of the great towns, bands of
criminals are formed by an easy and ready recruiting
of all the inferior beings, who have grown up in a
common poverty of moral instincts and a complete
absence of elevating sentiments.

The criminal class turns to account the instinct
of sociability, of solidarity, and of tendencies to
obedience; it exercises sometimes a veritable

EFFECTS. OF HEREDITY, ALCOHOLISM, ETC. 185

tyranny over its members, and even over its leaders,
who are the docile tools of the community, and who
exercise in their turn the most brutal or the most
insidious forms of constraint on wavering or passive
individuals.

The mob is like a torrent which sweeps away
everything in its path. If we form part of a multi-
tude assembled by chance, or of an elected assembly,
we do not belong to ourselves so completely, our
intellect is less clear, our sentiments are not so lofty,
our will is not so strong, and we are less worthy from
all points of view than when we think, feel, and act
in isolation. No doubt we may give way to noble
impulses, we may experience and communicate to
others noble passions; but, as a rule, we run the
risk of letting ourselves be carried away and
dominated by confused visions, which neither corre-
spond to the best that can be perceived, nor to
what we would best prefer if we could freely dispose
of ourselves.

86. Effects of Heredity, Alcoholism, and Social
Disturbances in general.

In addition to the influences exercised by the
criminal class and the crowd, heredity plays so
considerable a r6le in the determination of our
fundamental tendencies, that we cannot overlook
the part that is taken in the genesis of crime or
of misdemeanour by hereditary tendencies, and by
the social environment from which those tendencies
have emerged.

Degeneration, so far as it is a partial or general
weakening of the faculties of adaptation of the being

l86 THE DETERMINISM OF IMMORAL ACTIONS.

to its environment, of the power of work, and of
resistance to nervous or psychic troubles, has often
social causes, especially when it affects a large
number of individuals of the same age and of the
same environment.

In the first rank of the social causes of degene-
ration we must place alcoholism,^ the prejudices
against suitable choice in marriage, and intellectual
and professional over- work. " The choice of a wife,
or of a husband," says M. Goblot (a propos of my
treatise on the determining influences of madness),
"is determined far too much by worldly conven-
tions and material interests. How does a man get
into such a state as to require in his wife
neither health, beauty, intellect, nor heart? What
is also the mystery of the strange seduction of
alcohol, a seduction which continues to be prevalent
in spite of our knowledge of its danger ? How can
the desire of * getting on ' in order to acquire wealth,
and of * bettering ourselves ' by depriving ourselves
for that purpose of all enjoyment and all repose —
how can it be so powerful as to check the instinct
of self-preservation ? These are interesting problems
in social psychology."

We cannot pretend to solve these excessively
complex problems in a day, but we may fearlessly
assert that the causes we seek are not merely
psychological, and that the morbid phenomena thus
pointed out are due to more than individual per-
version, in fact to a social state of disturbance and
disintegration ; and that, precisely because a kind of
fatality seems to weigh on individuals, and because
the will is powerless to re-act against a fatal current,

^ Vii/e my Causes sociales de la Folie. Alcan, 1901.

EFFECTS OF HEREDITY, ALCOHOLISM, ETC. 1 87

we can guess that this current borrows its force from
sociological determinism. And besides, it is known
that criminality and immorality increase in all periods
of political disturbance and social "anomia." M.
Durkheim has shown that the principal cause of
suicide is the variable state of disintegration of
society, and that the frequency of suicides is in
inverse ratio to the power of politico-religious or-
ganisation ; so that the Catholic being more strongly
integrated than the Protestant communities, place
more obstacles in the way of suicide.^ What M.
Durkheim says of suicide we may repeat of all
immoral acts.

There is no doubt, then, that a healthy social
organisation can remedy immorality, and if we
consider, in addition, that psychological conditions
alone can give a complete determination to moral
obligation by assigning a supreme end to reasonable
conduct, we shall be convinced of the necessity for
the ethico-sociological researches which will follow.
Their object, in fact, is to bring us to a conception of the
social ideal from which will be eradicated those principal
causes of crime or lawlessness that are fundamentally
identical with the social causes of madness,

^ Durkheim, Le Suicide, pp. 149 et seq.\ Morselli, Suicide, pp.
1 19- 130, and Tables XVI. and XVIL— Tr.

PART III.

THE SOCIAL IDEAL,

I. Social Evolution.

87. The Present State of Sociology — 88. Social Statics
and Dynamics — 89. The Evolution of the Family — 90.
The Matriarchate and the Primitive Condition of
Woman — 91. The Primitive Condition of Children — 92.
The " Patria Potestas ^ and the Dissolution of the Family
— 93. The Future of the Family — 94. Animal Societies —
95. Political Life and the Struggle of Classes — 96.
The Idea of Equality — 97. Governments— g^Z, Plutocracy
— 99. Political Evolution and Law — icx). The Law of
Contract,

II. Social Evolution (^Continued).

loi. The Primitive Economic State — 102. Economic
Evolution — 103. Division of Labour — 104. Association —
105. Slavery and Property — \q^. Property — 107. Capital
and Labour — 108. Collective Sentiments — 109. Differ-
entiation of the Primitive Sentiments — no. The Evolu-
tion of Sociability — iii. The Religion of Humanity and
of the Unknowable — 112. Sociological Anticipations,

III. The Social Ideal.

113. Individualism and Altruism — 114. The Over-
Man — 115. Sacrifice of the Unfit— 116. The Gospel of
Tolstoi — 117. Renunciation — 118. The Consequences of
Non-resistance to Evil— ii(). The Necessity of Conflict —
120. Despotism — 121. The Meek — 122. The Aristocracy
— 123. Importance of the Theory of Rights,

IV. Rights.

124. The Foundation of Rights— 12^, Natural Right —
126. Metaphysical Right and Dignity— 127, Rights of
Social Function — 128. Justice and Devotion — 129. Justice

THE PRESENT STATE OF SOCIOLOGY. l8g

and Charity — 130. The Right of Property — 131. The
Share of the Community — 132. Property and Reform —

133. The Hereditary Transmission of Property,

V. The Statk

1 34. The Rdle of the State — 135. Theories of Sovereignty —
136. Summary of the Theories — 137. Relative Sovereignty
and the Social Contract — 138. Duties of the State — 139.
The State and Associations — 140. The State as Educator
—141. The State as Judge.

VI. The Economic Organisation.

142. Competition — 143. Subordination of the Economic
Order to a Higher Order— i^^. The Role of the State
— 145. The State Principle and the Corvde — 146.
Taxation — 147. Solidarity in the Economic Order— i^Z,
The Wages System — 149. Co-operation — 150. The Work
of Women and Children — 151. Value of the Workman —
152. The Choice of a Profession — 153. The Rights and
Duties of the Workman,

VII. The Family, Friendship, and the Collective
Sentiments.
154. The Rights of Woman — 155. Martiage — 156. The
Co- Education and Equality of the Sexes — 157. Divorce
and Duties towards Children— 1 58. Duties of Children —
159. Friendship and Fraternity — 160. Man in Relation
to Animals — 161. Genuine Human Sentiments,

I.

Social Evolution.

87. The Present State of Sociology,

Sociology is not advanced enough for us to be able
to register here, as results definitely acquired by the
science, a whole mass of data on what one might call
the anatomy, psychology, and ontogeny of societies.
We cannot yet say what are the organs and the

I go SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

functions indispensable to social life, with as much
precision and certainty as we can in the case of the
organs and functions necessary to psychic or bio-
logical activity. However, sociological ideas are
already sufficiently widespread for us not to
suppose any longer, as they seemed to suppose in
the eighteenth century, that social life is something
artificial, and is the product of a human invention,
the eifect of a social contract which was not auto-
matically produced.

We know that social relations form part of natural
relations; that some of them are necessary; that
others are laws proper to collective life and the
evolution of societies — in short, that all these rela-
tions, with most of which we are unfamiliar, will
be some day established and will constitute the
object of a real science.

It may therefore be claimed that it would be
more prudent to put off to that day, be it more or
less remote, the solution of the problem that we are
setting ourselves here — that of the moral organisa-
tion of social life — until this problem can be attacked
by men who are thoroughly familiar with the collec-
tive laws of life and of evolution. But no science is
complete even if it serve already as a basis for a
practical theory. Medicine is contemporary with the
first physiological researches, and if we are to wait
to act until we are perfectly informed we shall never
act at all. There would be this great danger in not
giving a provisional solution to the practical prob-
lems which lie before us, whatever might be the
present poverty of our knowledge of sociology,
namely, that ethics would continue to be purely
individual, to concern only an abstract being, since

SOCIAL STATICS AND DYNAMICS. IQI

the social being takes an ever larger place in our
personality. To allow the traditional morality to
subsist is to allow a phantom to subsist that has
no action on morals ; it were better, then, to substi-
tute for it a solution in conformity with the scientific
truth of to-day. Besides, the scientific truth of to-
morrow, and we must not disguise it from ourselves,
will be found too restricted and too remote to satisfy
the requirements of reality.

To believe in a perpetual transformation of moral
theories is by no means the same thing as a confes-
sion of scepticism. It is only inert things which do
not undergo evolution. Morality, the theory of social
activity, and of individual or collective life in society,
should be subject to shifting change like life itself.
Like the living being it should evolve, following the
progress of the human mind, and, in particular, the
progress of science. Logicians may boast that their
art has not changed since the days of Aristotle.
Either logic has not followed the progress of the
scientific method, or it has no relation to that
method, and therefore has no object and is a use-
less art. It were better to admit that it has changed,
and that it will again be modified. The moralist in
the same way has changed and will change. At most,
the best-informed moralist can boast that he is writing
for his generation, unless he keeps within the sphere
of trivialities and general theories those immortal
abstractions which are valid as classical types for
all times and all places.

88. Social Statics and Dynamics,

. Auguste Comte has distinguished between the
statics and dynamics of social science. Adapt-

192 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

ing and slightly modifying this view, it seems
legitimate to consider separately the totality of
functions and organisms that are indispensable to
all social life and to evolution properly so called ;
to construct on the one hand the anatomy and the
physiology, and on the other hand the ontogeny of
societies. But what are the principal institutions
that are indispensable to all social life ? They are
evidently those which correspond to the tendencies
that are essential to every human aggregate; and
comparative sociology alone can instruct us.

In all civilisations we find religious institutions.
We discover them at the very origin of social life.
They are everywhere closely connected with in-
tellectual tendencies (which will become scientific
tendencies) and with political tendencies. The
latter (scientific and political) are distinct from the
former, and give rise to entirely different institutions,
but the necessity and the universality of these institu-
tions is not a matter of debate, even although they
have been involved in their origin in religious institu-
tions.^ And so it is with ethical tendencies — tend-
encies to games, to holidays, and collective manifesta-
tions of joy or sorrow.

Outside the religious life there is little else at
the outset but the sexual relations and economic life.
The institutions which harmonise with the sexual
appetite were not long before they appeared, if it
is true that there ever was a social phase of
complete promiscuity ;2 exogamy and endogamy show
us what social importance was attached to the

* Vide Section 5.

^ Westermarck, History of Marriage, chap, iv.-v. ; Letourneau,
7 he Evolution of Marriage ^ chap. iii. — Tr.

SOCIAL STATICS AND DYNAMICS. I93

regulations of unions between individuals of dif-
ferent sexes.^ As for the phenomena of economic
life, they have become of ever-increasing complexity,
starting first of all from a simple tendency to the
search in common for nutriment and shelter.
Exchange has become commerce with its multiple
institutions. Slavery, serfdom, domesticity, com-
pulsory or free association, have in turn been the
consequences of the social organisation of work ; but
we cannot say of any one of these institutions taken
in particular that it is of such social necessity that
it must never disappear. On the contrary, its ap-
pearance at only certain places and at certain times,
its incessant transformations, are each in turn signs
of its fugitive character.

And so it is that the various forms of property, the
various legal institutions, as well as the various forms
of government, have only a relative importance in
the eyes of those who seek for what is most stable in
every society.

The first evolution of economic life gave rise under
certain circumstances to strong tendencies to military
life and organisation ; but it cannot be affirmed that
all societies passed through the military phase before
entering the industrial phase. Military institutions
can only correspond to transient needs, or may
constitute simple phenomena of reversion.

We see how little in the way of deeply rooted
tendencies remains beneath the variety of transi-
tory social institutions; but love and hunger, which,
as Schiller said, cannot fail to influence the
world while philosophers and moralists are dis-
puting, compel us to attack the problem of the

* Spencer, Principles of Sociology ^ chap. xx. 4. — Tr.

13

194 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

moral organisation of the sexual and economic
relations.

The disinterested sentiments, the needs of heart
and mind, religious, aesthetic, and scientific tenden-
cies, compel us at least to seek for the means of life
in common, by giving to those sentiments, needs,
and tendencies a legitimate satisfaction. And finally,
the universal existence of social constraint, and of
political power and organisation, compel us to study
the relations of the State and the individual, and
to examine political life from the moral point of
view. For that purpose we ought as a preliminary
to consider the evolution of law and morals in the
family, in the city, and in the State — economic
evolution and the evolution of the sentiments.

89. The Evolution of the Family.

Auguste Comte considered the family as the social
unit par excellence. Before and after him most
moralists have insisted on the close relations of
family and of social life, as if the family were the
prototype of every collective organisation based upon
natural relations. We know that Aristotle compares,
in his Politics,^ the different kinds of government to
the different modes of authority which can be realised
in the family by the subordination of the wife to the
husband, of the children to the father, and of the
slaves to the master. The father is therefore con-
sidered as a monarch, and that by nature. Many
modern writers have shared the mistake of Aristotle
on this point, and have held that the family type is
one and unchanging.

* Book I., chap. Hi.— Tr.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 195

The social evolution of different races shows us, on
the contrary, that the aspect of the family inces-
santly varies. Contemporary sociology has even
endeavoured to subordinate the evolution of the
family to the general law laid down by Spencer,
in virtue of which everything passes from the homo-
geneous to the heterogeneous, from the indefinite to
the definite, from the simple to the complex, and so
on. A kind of promiscuity of the sexes has often
been admitted as the primitive state anterior to
family life.^

Bachofen,^ in 1861, expounded the doctrine accord-
ing to which the state of promiscuity must have
succeeded the matriarchate, the regime of the femi^
nine rule, or rather the preponderance, from the
legal point of view, of the relations based upon
parentage by woman. Many authors have given
direct or indirect proofs of the existence of a matri-
archal phase, the levirate, the ambil anak,^ etc.
According to M. Durkheim and according to MacLen-
nan,* to promiscuity would have succeeded in the
organisation by clans a rudiment of family institu-
tions with endogamic or exogamic polyandry. Poly-
gamy would only come later, immediately preceding
the monogamic family of races at present the most
civilised. However, opinions are very much divided
on the origin of the family. It may be stated at the
outset that the state of promiscuity is at least an-
terior to the formation of human societies. Already

1 It has also been often denied; see, e.^., Westermarck, History of
Marriage, — Tr.
-- 2 cf, j)as Mutterrecht,

^ — 5 Cf. Mazzarella, La Condizione giuridica del Marito net Famiglia
matriarcale,
* Studies in Ancient History. London, 1878,

196 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

in animal societies we find, as M. Espinas has shown,x
very stable forms of conjugal existence: most birds
are monogamic;^ the male and the female experience
for each other a disinterested affection, which survives
the attraction of their first meeting, and which is
prolonged far beyond the duration of their union.^

Could not the stability of sexual unions which
increases with the degree of intelligence of the
animals, have been possible from the beginning, at
least in certain human races ? It is very likely that,
as M. Lalande ^ thinks with Darwin and Sir Henry
Maine,* the family springs directly, perfectly dif-
ferentiated and perfectly formed, from the physio-
logical conditions of reproduction.^

90. The Matriarchate and the Primitive Condition of
Woman.

To the argument of the disciples of Bachofen, who
concede a matriarchal phase necessarily preceding
the patriarchal, is opposed the opinion that the matri-
archal forms, and the ambil anak in particular,
although observed by Mazzarella in more than one
hundred and thirty cases among the most diverse
races of every country in the world, are perverted

* Sociites anifnales, p. 424. ^ Ibid,, p. 429.
^ La Dissolution opposie h I Evolution , p. 312.

* ** If it is really to be accepted as a social fact, the explanation
assuredly lies among the secrets and mysteries of our nature." — Village
Communities^ p. 15. Also vide Early Law and Ancient Custom. — Tr.

* According to Marro, Trans, of Ethnog, Soc, xi. p. 35, among
the Andaman^, a woman who resists the conjugal embraces of any
member of the tribe exposes herself to severe punishment. Is this a
vestige of the so-called primitive promiscuity? Is it not rather a sign of
decadence? (Cfc Letourneau, op. cit., p. 43, Trans, of Ethnog. Soc.,
N.S. ii., p. 35, V. p. 45-— Tr.)

PRIMITIVE CONDITION OF WOMAN. I97

forms of the primitive family institution, modes
posterior to the normal modes of family existence,
and products of social dissolution.

Besides, not only may a unique beginning of family
evolution be argued, but several kinds of beginning,
corresponding to the different types of the primitive
family. Grosse ^ seems to have correctly distinguished
the family of the hunter from that of the shepherd or
the farmer, either inferior or superior. Exogamy or
endogamy has had to depend, just as the existence
or the non-existence of the matriarchate has had to
depend, on entirely different economical conditions,
which have profoundly affected the social and legal
position of woman, a position which varies so con- /
siderably at different stages of civilisation.

M. Letourneau^ thinks that in all primitive
societies the woman represents the domestic animal,
the beast of burden of more advanced societies; that
she is treated as a slave, and that this is one of the
reasons why slavery was established at such a late
period in the course of social evolution. In Australia,
among the clans, slavery is unknown. Women are
reduced to serfdom, are overworked, and ill-treated.
The analogy to the beast of burden is complete.
Schurtz* confirms this evidence. According to
Ratzel,* the woman is considered by her husband
as a commodity; she is taken without her consent
among the Dieyeries, the natives of PowelPs Creek
on Herbert River, on the west side of the Gulf of
Carpentaria. She is exchanged at the whim of her

' Die Formen der Familie, Leipzig, 1896.

'^ U Evolution de P Esc lavage (1897), pp. 27 etseq,

* Katechismus der Vol/terkuttde (iSg^)* P* I39»

* Volkerkunde^ ii. pp. 66 et seq.

igS SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

brothers or relations. She may be sold or exchanged
by her husband when she no longer works according
to his liking. She may be slain without any legal
sanction, when she is no longer able to work, or
when food is not forthcoming for her nourishment;
and finally, after the death of her husband, she be-
comes the property of his brother.

But Dr. Nieboer^ refuses to see "only these bad
features of the case." Sometimes, even in Australia,
the wishes of the women are taken into considera-
tion, both in family life and in marriage. There are
numerous cases of women who have had a real in-
fluence over their husbands.^ The levirate exists,
according to Fraser and Dawson, among the natives
of New South Wales and of West Victoria. " When
a married man dies his brother is obliged to marry
the widow if she has a family, to protect her, and to
take care of the children of his brother." Here,
then, is a medley of customs apparently in complete
opposition, the one favourable to the doctrine of the
omnipotence of the husband, and the other rather
opposed to it. Signs of the primitive slavery of
woman always predominate, however, and that in
the tribes of North America as well as in the clans
of Australia. The women of the Ojibeway Indians,
according to Jones, do the hardest work, receive the
worst nourishment, and can barely claim a place in
the wigwam. Mackenzie ^ quotes numerous instances
of the slavery in which women of other Indian tribes,

^ Dr. Nieboer, ** Slavery as an Industrial System," Ethnological
Researches, The Hague, 1900.

2 Letourneau, op, cit,y pp. 190, 263-265. — Tr.

3 Voyages from Montreal through the Continent of North America
(1802), vol. i. pp. 147 et seq,\ vol. ii. pp. \^ et seq.

PRIMITIVE CONDITION OF WOMAN. I99

the Sioux, the Apaches, etc., are kept. In Melanesia
the condition is that of the severest slavery. Women
are estimated according to the amount of work they
can do. In Oceania, polygamy is very often only a
means for purely economic ends.

And further, according to Dr. Nieboer, wherever
the situation of women is improved, it is because
wealth or easy circumstances allow the husbands
to entrust to slaves or servants the work which
their wives would otherwise have been compelled
to do. It would not, therefore, be surprising to
find that in many cases family evolution began
with feminine slavery, and that in some cases
only has woman had from the beginning a social
and legal position, if not superior, at any rate equal
to that of man. Besides, the existence of the matri-
archal regime cannot prove the primitive superiority
of woman to man. If the transmission of property
takes place by the female line, if children remain
attached to their mother, and therefore are submitted
to the authority of her immediate parents — if, in
short, family life as a whole has for its pivot
maternity — such a state of things is perfectly natural,
especially among warriors and hunters, where the
men are almost always away from the home. It
is none the less natural that this should not be
the case among races leading an agricultural life,
and that patriarchal manners should be established,
if not at once, at any rate much sooner among the
latter than among the former.

As for the slavery of man, the situation created
by the ambil anak, in which the husband is the
servant, the slave, without any rights over his
children, we consider that such a mode of family

200 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

existence may have been, and must have been,
realised where strong men left one by one a poor
clan which was unable to give them food and work,
to betake themselves to rich and prosperous countries
where they were treated as strangers, and therefore
deprived of every right, even over their own children.
It does not follow, as M. Mazzarella believes, that the
ambil anak has everywhere constituted a necessary
phase of the evolution of the family.

We may, therefore, admit that at the beginning
of different civilisations the condition of woman has
been in most cases an inferior condition.

91. The Primitive Condition of Children.

Was this not also the case with children? We
seem to have been much more preoccupied, in the
environment in which the theory of the matriarchate
has assumed such importance, with the condition
of children than that of parents. However, Dr.
Steinmetz has recently gathered together in an in-
teresting study 1 the data which are to be found
in the works of Bancroft, Krause, Burckhardt, Von
Middendorf, Sohm, Puchta, and others, on this
question.

He has shown what degree of development has
been attained among savages by what the Romans
called "patria potestas." It is said that at Flores
the children of the richest families are treated
as slaves as long as their father is living, that
they figure as slaves both at public festivals and
at the funeral rites of their father, and that this is

* **Das Verh'altniss zwischen Eltern und Kindern bei den Natur-
volken," Zeitschrift fiir Socialwisscnschaft, I.

DISSOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 201

evidently the external sign of a rigorous paternal
authority. The Apaches, the Botocodos, the Be-
douins, and the Samoyedes have, as the ancient
Roman had, the power of life and death {jus vitce
ac necis) over their children. They use them for
their own purposes as chattels or domestic animals.
Everywhere the matriarchal regime exists, children
owe entire obedience and complete devotion to their
maternal uncle in particular, and he has over them
infinitely more rights than their own father. To him
they owe everything, and they have a right to nothing.

92. The ^'Patria Potestas'' and the Dissolution of
the Family ^

The point of departure of female evolution seems
therefore to be the despotism of the head of the
family, the slavery of the component elements,
women and children in most cases, but husband
and children under circumstances which, if not
abnormal and exceptional, are at least rare. And
further, the elements of the family were ill defined
at the outset. The family was included in a more
or less vast aggregate, and itself very often com-
prised servants whose condition and lot were but
very little different from that of the other members
of the family who were united by "ties of blood."

In proportion as the authority of the chief is
strengthened, we see the family form a much more
independent whole with its own traditions, its own
gods, its own worship, its own rights, and its own
government. It becomes, as it were, a house com-
pletely closed to most external influences and almost

^ Maine, Ancient Law, pp. 133-146. — Tr.

202 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

self-sufficient. Then the great family is dissolved
to make way for small families, containing fewer
elements, and having between them relationships
which become better and better defined. Paternal
and marital power become weakened, and at the
present day in the most civilised countries the family
whose cohesion reposes purely and simply on the
authority of the head, is in a fair way to dissolution.
Thus it may be considered as having reached the
most advanced stage in general evolution. In the
times of the Punic wars, says M. Lalande,^ respect
for the family is at least as strong as respect
for the State; discipline always reigns on the
domestic hearth. In our days respect for parents
and for the husband loses its ancient character,
which was derived from fear of the tyrant. Woman
has progressively freed herself from the narrow
tutelage in which she was kept by the authority
of the husband, a tutelage which was sanctioned
by custom and law, but which became more and
more branded as brutal and illegitimate. Evolution
of the family thus takes place in the direction of
the decadence of authority and of an increase of
individual liberty.

Formerly female property remained indivisible,
and theoretically at least belonged to the family
represented by the ancestor or by the eldest of
the children, whose duty it was to supply the needs
of all the other members of the family; and so
property became more and more individual. In
olden times certain professions were hereditary, and
children could claim public support by taking up, in
most cases under compulsion, a profession as to

^ La Dissolution opposie b. V kvolution^ p. 325.

ANIMAL SOCIETIES. 203

which they were allowed no choice; but in our day,
children are almost completely independent in the
choice of a profession. Woman is less and less con-
fined to the home; she takes her part in social work,
and in many of the functions of public life.

93. The Future of the Family.

What, then, can we foresee in the near future but a
still more complete dissolution of the family and a
greater homogeneity of all its elements, the pro-
gressive disappearance of every vestige of the ancient
patria potestas and jus maritale, a more and more
marked independence of the different members,
who will always be bound by legal, economical, and
moral ties to one another, but who will be fretted
less and less by those ties in their civil action and
in the exercise of their aptitudes? In fact, the family
solidarity which formerly visited upon the children
the sins of their ancestors to the thirtieth generation,
and which made of the family honour so powerful a
motive to minds attached to tradition, will place
an ever-diminishing obstacle in the way of a wider
solidarity and the formation of free and extended
groups.

94. Animal Societies,

The existence of a social organisation among the
animals inferior to man has been proved by M.
Espinas in his excellent treatise on animal societies.^
But the same author has shown the diversity of the
principles of common life, from that of parasitism to
that of conjugal society. May we not suppose that

^ See also Prince Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, passim. — Tr.

204 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

human societies have been constituted on other
foundations than those of "animal societies"? No
doubt there is a continuity in the evolution of the
animal kingdom, and the stages between the inferior
and the human modes of social organisation are
marked by numerous intermediaries. But there
comes a time when moral and rational considera-
tions intervene, when society is judicially constituted,
when organisation from being spontaneous becomes
reflective, when beings living in common become
conscious of their aptitude for regular collective
action and of the requirements of that mode of
life, and of the possibility of effecting lasting modi-
fications therein from the point of view of progress.
Is not this the stage when organisation becomes
really social because it is really human ?

Some authors claim, it is true, that there is already
among animals a kind of judicial institution : ^ a solemn
and deliberate sentence to death with all the char-
acteristics of a judicial execution, according to Dr.
Ballion.

However, the ideas of right and justice, of law and
of violation of law, of obligation, of acts permitted or
forbidden, can only proceed from moral reflection,
and they are indispensable in the conversion into
political facts of such facts as may be connected with
a "pre-social" phase — facts of reaction, of collective
restraint, and of life in common, in the stage where
there is no other foundation for the existence of
community, but imitation, spontaneous sympathy, and
what M. Durkheim calls "mechanical solidarity." ^

1 Kropotkin, op, cit.^ p. 58.— Tr.

'■* Spencer, Principles of Psychology ^ chap. xvii. 5, Sociality and Sym-
pathy.— Tr.

THE STRUGGLE OF CLASSES. 205

95. Political Life and the Struggle of Classes.

When the observation of certain rules deliberately
laid down is required for the accomplishment of acts
hitherto left to the individual choice, when law
replaces custom, whatever may be the origin of
law and the power which promulgates it — provided
that there arises in us all a sense of obligation — when
authority is established, then political life com-
mences, and then only can there be a question of
morality or immorality in the State.

Now the influence of " authority " is felt from an
early date in the evolution of the human race. We
know of no race, no tribe, no clan, in which there
does not exist a collective will expressed by verbal or
written prescriptions which are well known to all,
and which already constitute the law. The form
of government matters relatively little, and, as with
Plato and Aristotle, too much importance perhaps
has been attached to the sometimes quite superficial
opposition between the monarchical, the aristocratic,
and the democratic forms.

What matters much more is the spirit of the
government, the conception of the relations which
are to be created or maintained between the State
and the individual. Is there any correspondence
between the State and the nation? Is there any
opposition, and therefore is the State, that is to say
the organ of coercion and of government, the main-
spring of authority, only a portion of the nation,
or are there intermediaries between it and the
people? Do these intermediaries consist of classes
or castes, and does the law vary according to the

2o6 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

caste? That is the important point to consider in
social evolution.

It seems that in general the power was first in the
hands of the public, who showed their authority
especially in reprisals on some of their members
for outrage against public feeling. The greater the
outrage, the more it attacked deeply rooted senti-
ments, the more violent was the social reaction, and
the more unity was there in the exercise of collective
power. So that, as M. Durkheim has shown, the
law was to all intents and purposes the penal law.
Political, religious, economical, and family organisa-
tion for a long time formed among many tribes an
indivisible and not yet differentiated whole. How
could distinct classes, the one dominant, the
other subordinate, be constituted and give rise
to those political struggles which, proceeding
unchecked, brought about an accumulation of
injustice and crime — gave rise to rivalries and
conquests, and caused the formation of distinct,
and in most cases hostile nationalities? There is
no doubt that the increase of density in different
populations was one of the principal causes of those
great political and military movements which ended
in the intermingling of different races, and for a long
time secured the rule of the strongest.

The formation and the disappearance of castes or
distinct classes being, as we have seen, the most
important phenomenon of social evolution, one sees
in succession religious, military, and plutocratic
castes predominant, according as the evolution of
a country is more or less advanced.

But the rule of the castes, which flourished in
antiquity among both European races and the

THE IDEA OF EQUALITY. 207

Egyptians, gradually disappeared. The transient
predominance of a sect has replaced the constant
supremacy of a caste in communities without stable
political organisation, such as the Semitic tribes and
the Arabs. In modern nations "the struggle of the-
classes" seems to be daily on the decrease. M.
Lalande rightly points out, "the increasing inter-
relation of men to one another, and at each stage
of their development a corresponding assimilation
of aims, ideas, and sentiments which were at
the outset opposed." Homogeneity proves superior
to diversity in practice, "tendencies towards unity
urge men to destroy the very differences that
nature gives to them ready made. Every external
mark of specialisation which was once regarded
with pride now falls into discredit." Everywhere
in the family as in the State, in habits as in
language, the assimilation proceeds apace; common
interests unite men of very different origin; individuals
of every social sphere are constantly being brought
into closer contact; so that we may consider the
different " classes " of society as superannuated forms
in which before long no individual will care to find
himself.

96. The Idea oj Equality}

M. Bougie 2 examines and explains the develop-
ment in modern Western society of the idea of
equality, which was part of the social conscious-
ness of the ancients. In antiquity, as Fustel de
Coulanges has pointed out, "the city was the only

* Cf. Mackenzie, An Introduction to Social Philosophy y pp. 249-286 ;
Sorley, op, cit.^ pp. 69-73 ; Maine, Ancient Law, pp. 92-96.— Tr.
^ Les /dies egalitaires. Alcan, 1899.

208 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

living force; there was nothing above it and nothing
below it." It was only at the close of the Roman
period, under the . influence of Stoicism and
Christianity, that the individual appears as an
end and becomes a more or less independent centre,
the "point of intersection of very numerous and
very different circles which compete in distinguish-
ing his personality from that of others." The idea
of equality develops in proportion as density of
population, social mobility, rapidity and frequency of
communication, and homogeneity co-existing with
considerable differentiation, increase in a nation or
a totality of nations. Societies which being unified
while they are becoming complex, whose units are
being assimilated at the same time that they are
developing points of difference, and which are being
simultaneously concentrated and multiplied, must
habituate men's minds to the idea of equality.

Now such conditions are realised in modem
Western societies. We can therefore foresee that
" habits of mind opposed to the idea of freiedom will
be shattered, both by the assimilation which unites
the members of one group to those of another, and
by the differentiation which throws into mutual
opposition the members of another group." The
struggle of classes, the predominance of one .caste
over another, are social phenomena which must
disappear.

But for ideas of equality to triumph, since unity
and diversity must proceed pari passu, an increasing
centralisation of the directing and coercive power
is necessary. A centralised government increases
density of population, establishes uniformity, and
" tends to oppose every kind of group, both compact

GOVERNMENTS. 20g

and exclusive, which divides society into clearly
distinct sections."^ What is then the form which,
in the near future, government will take in the
ordinary process of evolution ?

97. Governments,^

M. Coste, after an exhaustive examination of
historical data,^ thinks that, from the political
point of view, the succession of governments
absolute or patriarchal, military -religious, adminis-
trative, parliamentary, representative and judicial, is
inevitable. He sees in this evolution a progressive
decrease of subjection, a continuous progress to-
wards the suppression of despotism and the
effective protection of the law. There is less
servitude under a military government than under
absolute patriarchal rule, because in the military
state we undergo discipline, while in the primitive
social forms rule was despotic (whether the rule
of the community or of the individual). There
was less oppression under administrative than
under military rule; less check to individual liberty*
under representative rule than under administrative;
and finally, under judicial rule, " the most complete
liberty possible involves the admissibility of all, not
only to public, but to social functions; and this
must end in a given time in bringing together — a
matter of the utmost advantage to society and the
individual — the task which is to be performed,

^ Bougie, op, cU,

^ Mackenzie, op, cit,, pp. 329 e£ seq, Proal, Political Crime, pp. 173-
205, 312-339.— Tr.

' Ad. Coste, V Experience des Peuplet et les Previsions quelle autorise,
pp. 186-193. Paris, Alcan, 1900.

14

210 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

and the man, wherever he may come from, who
is found most competent to perform it." And
therefore favouritism, castes, classes in an attitude
of hostihty, checks to the free expansion of individual
value, and opposition between the State and the
nation, beyond the legal opposition of the govern-
ment to the governed, must all disappear. This,
then, is the final stage of an evolution which has
been in operation for ages.

98. Plutocracy.

Mr. Brooks Adams,^ who does not believe so much
in evolution as in a series of "ricorsi" such as
Vico suggested, throws into relief the preponderating
power of money in political evolution. M. Ad. Coste
recognises that " trouble is almost inevitable between
the parliamentarian system (whether monarchical or
republican in form) and plutocracy"; but with much
optimism he foresees that in the not remote future
the power of parties and of the middle classes, and
the power of riches, will yield to the power of the
* intellect and of free association. Mr. Brooks Adams
seems to make too much of that entity — the race;
he feels that after three or four generations exhausted
blood needs purification and renewal by the contact
of a new race, lest it should recommence the fatal
cycle which begins with militarism and ends in an
inevitable decadence, in the lowering of the moral
level by triumphant plutocracy. New races pene-
trate but slowly into the great current on which
civilised nations are borne; the elements of both
mingle very slowly; so that, properly speaking, there

^ La Loi de la Civilisation et dc la Dkadence, Alcan, 1899.

POLITICAL EVOLUTION AND LAW. 211

is no race which is just entering on its existence, and
no race just coming to an end. And further, there
are no two "races" or groups of nations which have
a similar evolution, and one cannot infer from the
slow decomposition of the Byzantine or of the
Roman world the inevitable decadence of the
European civilisation of the present day. In-
dustrial development will probably be an obstacle
to the pernicious influence of money. No doubt it
will also be an obstacle to the incessant struggle
between the classes, which, in the eyes of a German
sociologist, M. Zenker,^ appears inevitable and eter-
nal. His conception of the State as a hierarchy
of castes maintained in subjection by the brute
power of another caste, which is but temporarily
predominant, seems to proceed from an incomplete
view of social evolution.

The idea of a reign of law and right, as opposed
to a reign of force and money, has made incontest-
able progress, and has become an integral part of the
social consciousness of civilised races.

99. Political Evolution and Lawr

That political evolution takes place in the direc-
tion of a greater independence of the individual
with respect to all arbitrary power is shown by the
evolution of law. As we saw above, law was first
of all almost entirely penal. The harm caused to
individuals escaped all repression when it constituted
no offence to collective sentiment, and one might
•quote many examples of crime against the individual,.

^ Naturliche Entwickelungsgeschichte Gesellschaft. Berlin, 1899.
^ Proal, op. cit,y pp. 279-353; Maine, ^/. aV., pp. 25, 113-151.— Tr.

212 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

and even of murders, judged much less severely by
primitive societies than the forgetting of a ritual pre-
scription, which seems to us in these days entirely
insignificant. There is therefore in primitive law
a sure indication of the importance assumed by
Authority, and of the small value attached to
persons and individual rights. It may be said
that the latter, properly speaking, do not exist, for
the individual is as it were submerged in the social
mass ; he is not yet sufficiently disengaged from his
environment to oppose .his moral force to the brute
force of the community. Certain historians of the
law have given with Fragapane the name of
" pre-juridic " to this social phase, because it seems
dominated by individual or collective vengeance.

The vengeance of the community is already exer-
cised, not only as a purely impulsive reaction, but
also as a means of social preservation, of the pre-
servation of traditions, rites, customs, feelings, and
tendencies which are the very soul of common life.
It is the "social spirit," as M. Tanon^ says, " which
by its force alone creates the whole of law"; and
it can only be so in nascent societies, in which simpli-
city and uniformity of the conditions of life and culture
impress on each member of the community the same
manner of feeling and thinking, and make each em-
brace and conceive uniform views of the whole of
moral and judicial life. Thus there is really law in
the first phase of social life, and this law is the
point at which the evolution we have to examine
begins. This penal law, founded on social con-
straint, allows of the second and third phases
indicated by Fragapane : the " arbitrary legal

' Tanon, V involution du Droits p. 74. Alcan, 1900.

THE LAW OF CONTRACT. 213

phase," the phase of vengeance and settlement;
and the "executive legal phase," that of the im-
perative intervention of authority for the purpose
of a coercive sanction.

100. The Law of Contract}

In the course of these two phases, the importance
assumed by the individual becomes greater and
greater. The law of contract with its restitutive
sanction is progressively opposed to the penal law
with its purely repressive sanction. Commercial
customs, the development of relations between
races, tribes, and nations, must ever contribute to
the expansion of this law which makes a large
number of practical determinations depend on a
contract freely entered upon, and no longer on the
arbitrary will of the sovereign.

The obligations imposed by the law thus became
less numerous than the obligations accepted in
consequence of an agreement between individuals.
The civil law successfully opposed the criminal
law; and in our days the former has acquired a
preponderance which is incontestable.

In fact, the simple contract between individuals
is not sufficient to constitute a legal act. There is
no legal fact unless the assistance of public authority
is assured for the execution of the contract. For
that to be the case, the contract must be established
in the forms, under the conditions, and within the
limits fixed by the law. Now we see the law
penetrating further and further into the domain
of private life and of the individual will for the

^ Maine, Ancient LaWy chap. ix. — Tr.

214 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

purpose of regulating the most varied modes of
action, and of thus giving them all a social value
and a legal sanction. While formeriy, and from the
beginning of evolution, the collective power deter-
mined as much as possible the ** substance" of
actions, thus annihilating the individual will, main-
taining by force the primitive homogeneity, we now
see authority endeavouring more and more to impose
a common form on every act ; but, while giving a
legal form, we see it further and further refraining
from determining the substance of the obligations,
leaving that duty to the individuals who are freely
binding themselves by the contract. In marriage in
France, for instance, it is only in default of anterior
conventions that the law imposes a well-defined rule.
And so the social life penetrates more and more into
the individual life, but social constraint is ipso facto
exerted less and less on the individual will, and
thus the development of the liberty of the citizen
is intimately connected with the development of
the legal system. And so we see those races
which advanced in civilisation, granting to the
State powers of the most varied order, and at the
same time giving to individual liberty the maximum
extension, while, on the other hand, oriental races
are those in which we see the minimum of import-
ance attached to the social functions of the State,
and the minimum development of individual liberty.
The future, then, really belongs to the individual who,
under the control and the protection of the State, will
become more and more independent of all arbitrary
authority.

THE PRIMITIVE ECONOMIC STATE, 215

11.

Social Evolution (Continued).

loi. The Primitive Economic State.

It has been recently alleged that economic pro-
gress in primitive humanity was effected as the life
of the hunter or fisher gave place to the nomadic
life of the shepherd, and eventually to that of the
farmer. But, " over more than half the globe," says
Dargun,^ "pastoral life has not been the stage of
transition between hunting and agriculture, and in
consequence the inhabitants of many countries have
never known the regime of property which is peculiar
to a race of shepherds. Among them we must in-
clude those of America, Australia, and Polynesia on
the one hand, and at any rate the greater part of
those of Asia and Africa on the other. We must
therefore cease to consider the three traditional
stages as necessarily successive in human progress.
And further, all the pastoral tribes that we know do
engage in agriculture, although in a very dilatory
fashion. Hordes of nomadic shepherds are, taken as
a whole, more civilised than many tribes which are
devoted to agriculture." This gives us grounds for
believing that a pastoral life is posterior to primi-
tive agriculture. These are views which are now
generally accepted, and Grosse distinguishes in each
group of shepherds, hunters, or farmers, the inferior

* L. Dargun, ** Ursprung und Entwickelungsgeschichte des Eigen-
thums," Zeitschr.f, VergL Rechtswiss, v., 1884.

2l6 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

and the superior, in order to mark that these groups
correspond rather to different types of existence than
to degrees of the same evolution.

102. Economic Evolution.

Whether they be shepherds, hunters, or farmers,
primitive races have an economic activity which is
but slightly complex. It is only, it seems, at the
superior stage of primitive ^agricultural life that
exportation, commerce, or exchange with near or
remote tribes make their appearance. Division of
labour, the separation of trades, and the artisan's life
do not come till later. The development of in-
dustrial activity is therefore more characteristic of
a high civilisation than the expansion of commer-
cial life and the importance of exchange, although
commerce obviously cannot reach a high degree of
development except pari passu with industrial progress.

M. Coste^ divides economic evolution into five
principal periods: —

1. Patriarchal production or the joint-tenancy of
productive activity; absence of monetary exchange,
inalienable real property {jus utendi),

2. Separation of professions and trades, domestic
and artisan production, local commerce, inalienable
landed property (jus abutendi).

3. Division of labour and the use of natural driving
power in manufactures, regulated inter-provincial
and colonial commerce, capital and commercial
property.

4. The mechanisation of labour and the use of
physico-chemical motors in machinery and tran-

1 (9/. «•/., p. 336.

DIVISION OF LABOUR. ^\^

sport, conventional international commerce, personal
property.

5. Creation of economic organisms by combination
for public action, of protection by union of co-opera-
tive association of capital and interested individual
activity; free exchange; co-operative property for
workers on the plus value of the productive funds
chargeable to them.

103. Division of Labour y

Economic evolution would therefore be character-
ised by an increase of production, more and more
active exchange, the progressive suppression of every
cause of loss (checks to free labour, administrative
tyranny, frauds, crises, artificial regulations), in short
by an increasing intervention of the community and
of the State for the protection of individuals and the
utilisation of their aptitudes.

The main effect of this evolution in the last century
was the introduction of machinery with its power a
hundred times greater than that of man, the in-
cessant improvements which place in the hands of
the workman the greatest variety of tools, thus
involving a great diversity of functions, and an ever-
increasing division of labour. We can scarcely
foresee how far machinery will transform industry,
and therefore modify economic life. But it certainly
seems that the age of competition between indi-
viduals will very soon be brought to an end.
** Economic individualism,'' says M. Coste,^ *' is

^ Marshall, Principles of Economics ^ \o\. i. pp. 310-327, 339-356;
ibid., Economics of Industry, pp. ^^et seq. ; Walker, Political Economy,
pp. 58 et seq, — Tr.

2 op. cit., p. 342.

2l8 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

perfectly sound when it lays stress on the fniitfulness
and the needfulness of personal initiative, but there
are no grounds for the supposition that it is self-
sufficient. Sociology must show that economic
progress consists in the better and better concerted
co-operation of public action, of associated capital
and individualised labour without any undue as-
sumption of superiority on the part of one of these
elements over the others.'* The powerless and
costly nature of competition, belauded as it is by
orthodox economists, has been shown in the course
of the nineteenth century. It has caused ruin and
failure which concerted action would have avoided.
Division of labour, specialisation of work, and there-
fore of aptitudes, while giving increasing value to
the individual, makes more and more urgent the
demand for co-operation, and for the solidarity of all
the factors of wealth, and of all the elements of
economic life. M. Durkheim has ably shown how
"organic solidarity" increases with the division of
labour, and brings in its train an increase of that
individual liberty which, in spite of their desire to
keep it intact, the supporters of competition have but
indifferently safeguarded. The division of labour
and solidarity allow of an indefinite progress of the
machinery without reason for fearing the conse-
quences. Brute force in man will become of less
and less account; intellectual power and technical
skill will be more and more appreciated. For it
cannot be maintained that a machine, however
perfect it may be, will be directed by an ignorant
and clumsy workman as well as by one who is
skilful, capable of performing the maximum of
useful work, and of repairing, when occasion arises.

ASSOCIATION. 219

the machinery with which he is familiar, and which
he uses with the more precision in proportion as he
is familiar with it. It ha^ been said that the advent
of the long-range rifle has shown that valour and
courage on the field of battle are useless ; but it has
made intelligence far more valuable. In the same
way machinery makes brute force of no avail; it
makes still more valuable the qualities of mind that
a long apprenticeship and constrained discipline
enable a man to acquire. From the purely socio-
logical point of view it brings together workmen on
the same work — work which is always getting more
complex. It makes of the great shop, of the great
factory, of the industrial city, a more and more
unified whole. It radically contrasts the trades of
to-day and their unions with those of the Middle
Ages, when corporations subjected industrial activity
to the domination of a few narrow and immutable
rules, and left the individual no right to initiative,
and no means of acquiring personal value.^

104. Association^

The unions of the present day tend, it is said,*"^ to
" economic sovereignty," that is to say, to the regula-
tion of prices, salaries, and hours of work; and these
regulations are imposed on all workmen and on all
concerned, and 'would thus, it seems, clearly affect
individual liberty. M. Yves Guyot agrees with M.
Paul Boncour in foreseeing an increasing tendency

* Brentano, History and Development of Guilds y pp. loi etseq, — Tr,
- Mackenzie, op, cit, ; Marshall, Principles of Economics ^ pp.

433-434, 710-71 1. —Tr.

^ J. P. Boncour, Le Fediralisme konomique. Preface by M. Wal-

deck- Rousseau. Alcan, 1900.

220 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

to "socialistic tyranny." Nothing is more natural
to a mass of men, suddenly organised into powerful
unions, than the claim to exercise an unlimited con-
straint on the defenceless individual. The instincts
of the crowd are fundamentally instincts of oppres-
sion. We have seen trade unions in France pursuing
with their hatred the recalcitrant among their fellows,
and the only reason they have not committed illegal
acts is that justice has intervened.

But facts such as these are rather phenomena of
regression than of evolution. To form a sane judg-
ment of the future of trade unions one must place
oneself above all that is accidental, above all
unfortunate incidents and transient tendencies.
Unbearable tyranny would wreck the unions. One
may therefore predict their disappearance within a
limited period, if they have no other aptitudes than
those which, during their short existence, we have
been enabled to discover.

Happily the unions have other reasons for their
existence than the tendency of the mass to dominate
and oppress the individual. Just as, from the politi-
cal point of view, evolution has taken place in the
direction of an organisation of power, so that the law
which is the expression of reason is substituted for
the individual or collective choice — in. the same way
from the economic point of view the future will no
doubt show a more or less rapid transition from
" socialistic tyranny " to the legal liberty of the
unions. In fact, the object of union is " the expres-
sion of professional solidarity," and the putting into
practice of that solidarity which during past cen-
turies, and notably in the nineteenth century, has
endeavoured incessantly to manifest itself in spite

ASSOCIATION. 221

of obstacles of every description placed in the way of
its development by the central power. There is a
natural grouping, says Mr. Jay/ " which arises from
community of residence, and another which is derived
from community of occupation. ... In both cases
special relations are established, similar needs are
created, competing forces, connections, and opposi-
tions of interest arise with quite a body of relation-
ships, the co-ordination of which into a regular
regime is necessary to secure safety to all, and to each
the means of pursuing his ends''

As M. Paul Boncour proves, the aspect of pro-
fessional solidarity varies with each profession. But
it exists everywhere, and is itself a justification of the
•existence of the unions, and gives the surest indica-
tion of the future of economic associations.

Individual liberty does not therefore seem to be
threatened by the organisation of collective force.
On the contrary, indeed, its safety would be best
secured by the unions confining themselves to a
defence of their common rights and their common
independence. Besides, do we not see already a
tendency to substitute for the violent pressure which
is sometimes exercised on individuals in the case of a
strike, a kind pf universal suffrage, a referendum
having as its principle the free expression of the indi-
vidual will, and as its end the methodic establishment
of a common rule ?

M. Paul Boncour foresees a yet more brilliant
future for associations of every kind, and in particular
for the trades unions. According to him, the day
will come when these professional groups will be
invested by the law with rights similar to those of

^ Evolution du Rigime legal du Travail y p. i6.

222 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

other and dissimilar associations (the right of civil or
criminal prosecution, the right of setting in motion
public action in the case of misdemeanours which
come within their competence) ; when, in addition to
this moralising r6le, they will give valuable assistance
as regards laws of labour, industry, and commerce, to
the administration of those laws, and to the political
and economic organisation of the country. Federa-
tion of all types of unions might serve as a basis
for the general representation of the interests and
tendencies of a nation.^

If the professional unions some day attain such a
degree of co-ordination and of political or legal
weight, entirely new conditions of equilibrium of
economic forces, and in particular a new method
of division of wealth among the workmen, must of
necessity come into force in each country.^

105. Slavery and Property.

The division of property, whether natural or
acquired by labour, was for a long time effected
according to principles which would not obtain at
the present day. Almost at the beginning of social
evolution we find slavery depriving certain indi-
viduals of all power of possession, although these
very individuals were the only workers and the sole
producers of wealth.^

No doubt slavery was not a universal fact in
humanity. In numerous races men have never been
enslaved by their fellows; and if Dr. Nieboer is to be
believed, and his treatise is full of evidence on this

^ Paul Boncour, Le Fidiralisme iconomique, pp. 354-377.

* Mackenzie, op, cit.^ pp. 323, 324. — Tr.

* Maine, Ancient Law, pp. 162 et seq. — Tr.

SLAVERY AND PROPERTY. 223

point, military races have been much less prone to
institute slavery than industrial and commercial
communities; but we may consider the slavery of
individuals or of entire races as a very widely spread
" industrial system."

The process has been very general. Everywhere
we see that when economic life has ceased to consist
in direct exchange, or in an immediate consumption
of natural products, whenever industry and commerce
have been developed, there then appears a tendency
on the part of the stronger to oppress the weaker,
in order to obtain from them the maximum of
labour with the minimum of expense or pay.

Now this tendency gradually disappears. More
and more must there ensue an exchange of services
through the intermediary of money, and therefore an
accumulation in the hands of the greatest number
of individuals of the means of exchange which
constitute private property.

Industrial progress has freed the workman. The
increasing complexity of the means of production,
multiplicity of inventions, the necessity of profiting
by every natural resource in regions where none but
hard-working men can live, have made division of
labour inevitable. The difficulties of the struggle
for existence have made certain races bolder, more
ready for innovation, and more inclined to appreciate
skill, the spirit of invention, and technical value.
While the nations which lived on a rich soil, in
fertile plains, continued to live without effort, and
endeavoured to keep a considerable number of slaves,
the races which lived on a poor soil, in mountainous
districts, put forth all their energies, and in the
accomplishment of their common tasks accustomed

^24 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

themselves to the equality of all before the law, and
conceived the idea of the aptitude of all to possession
in general, and the right of each to possess the fruits
of his labour. And thus, as Spencer^ has so clearly-
shown, industrialism assisted the development of
individual property. And besides, as the English
philosopher points out, since the diversity and the
importance of personal property possessed by in-
dividuals increases with industrialism, land is little
by little assimilated to the product of work, and is
blended with primitive personal property, so that
landed property is also subject to an evolution which
tends to make the good that nature brings us and
all kinds of natural and artificial wealth more and
more strictly individual.

io6. Property.

Nomadic races could scarcely conceive of any
other individual property than that of weapons and
a limited number of movable articles. Warlike races
added to these the possession of booty; agricultural
races, which seem the most apt to conceive of real
property, have not, as a rule, admitted at the outset
that a part of the common soil may be exclusively
reserved for the individual. It was only as the art
of agriculture progressed that temporary possession
was established. "The land," says M. de Laveleye,
" continues to remain the collective property of the
clan, to which it returns from time to time for the
purpose of redistribution. This is the system in
force at the present day in Russian communities.
In the time of Tacitus it was the system among the
Germanic tribes."

' Principles of Sociology^ chap, xv.— Tr.

PROPERTY. 225

According to M. Kovalewsky, primitive agrarian
communism was first destroyed by the increasing
density of the population, and afterwards by political
institutions such as the feudal system, or by social
events such as the triumph of the middle classes.
The truth is that the communism of savage hordes
has never been anything but the lack of individual
property, and can only be defined negatively, for, as
M. Zenker ^ remarks, the mind of early man is not
complex enough to grasp at once the idea of col-
lective possession. It was in the absence of all
possession that individual property was established,
so that it had not to struggle against a rival and
anterior collectivism.

Strength, skill in handling arms and in getting
the best of it in the fight, as Spencer claims,^ were
at the outset the foundation of the special advan-
tages given to certain men, and these advantages
degenerated into landed property.

In proportion as technical skill and intellectual
or moral worth acquired a wider scope, and became
the rivals in public estimation of warlike reputation,
private property became more widely extended
among those races which began with the military
regime. In other cases, the bringing into relation
of the soil, mines, quarries, etc., by means of labour
has allowed of more or less lasting usurpation.^

But we must be careful to remember that the
evolution of landed property had to pass through
a stage which is peculiar to it, possession by the
family rather than by the individual. In our days,

^ Die Gesellschaft^ vol. i. p. 80. ^ Op. cit., chap, xv.— Tr.

' Thus the existing law of property sprang in 1789 from the law of
property which obtained in the Middle Ages.

15

226 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

among the most civilised races, there still remain
unmistakable traces of the possession of real pro-
perty by the community to which the individual is
immediately attached.

When it is not the family, it is the congregation
or the group that is charged with the duty of safe-
guarding the community of joint-possession. This
is, properly speaking, the coUectivist phase of social
evolution. It is not the first phase, nor is it the
most recent; it is intermediary between the un-
conscious com'munism of the beginning, and the
individualism of the present day.^

Property therefore tends to become more and
more personal, and this tendency is due in particular
to the present conditions of labour. It always seems
that individualism is not here antagonistic to a kind
of collective possession, possession by unions or
associations of different kinds, or by all the groups
which have as their end the work that is common
to different individuals. Individual property has
nothing to fear from the development of such
collective property, which is perhaps the form of
possession which the greatest and economically the
most successful enterprises will assume in the future.

107. Capital and Labour.^

Industrialism has not only favoured the establish-
ment of individual property; by the accumulation
of capital necessitated by great industrial enter-

^ Even under the feudal system we find family "tenure** generally
preferred to individual tenure. Cf. H. S^e, Les Classes rurales et le
Rigime domanial en France au moyen Age, 1901.

2 Marx, Capital,' vol. ii. chap. xv. ; Thorold Rogers, The Economic
Interpretations of History, pp. 23, 228.-— Tr.

CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 227

prises, it has also given rise to a conflict between
capital and labour. The problem of the fair relation
to be established between the revenue of the capi-
talist and the earnings of the worker is essentially
modern, one may even say, recent. For it only
came into being when the variety and the power
of machinery had modified so profoundly the tout
ensemble of the economic phenomena of produc-
tion.^

The suppression of ancient corporations, while
destroying many abuses and unjustifiable privileges,
has disorganised those workmen to whom the right
of association, coalition, and co-operation has been
for a long time denied. Capital has turned out to
be omnipotent in the face of defenceless labour. It
has been followed by indisputable abuses, and
enormous fortunes have been realised by capitalists
who certainly had less right than their workmen to
possess profits which, after all, are really common.

But a well-marked evolution tends to give more
and more solidarity to capital and labour. The
sharing by the workmen of profits, and co-operation
in every, form, seem little by little to be making of
each labourer a small capitalist interested both in
the rise of wages and the increase of dividends.^

We may foresee that unions will assume such
dimensions that the struggle between the represen-
tatives of capital and labour will be regulated in a
manner which will tend to become more and more
pacific, when we take into consideration the re-
spective strength of the two parties.^

* Marx, op. ci/., chaps, xxxi., xxxii. — Tr.

2 Marshall, Principles of Economics , pp. 366-368. — Tr,

' Mackenzie, op. cit^^ p. 324. — Tr,

228 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

io8. Collective Sentiments.

As has been already pointed out on many occasions,
the first sentiments which developed in humanity
took in general a religious form ; and in most cases
to these were added before a long period had elapsed
the aesthetic sentiments, the development of which
was encouraged by the festivals, the games, and the
ceremonies that have always been held in honour
among all races.

Given the social homogeneity already indicated,
it is not surprising that common sentiments have
had an incornparable degree of vivacity and energy,
have united consciousnesses, and given to collective
manifestations their practically unanimous support.
Fanaticism with its explosions of hatred against
heterodoxy was the consequence. And as the social
sentiments make but one whole with the religious
sentiments, we can imagine the power of the priests
associated with that of the chiefs, or that of the chiefs,
the magistrates, and patriarchs, who were invested
with a religious character. The morals established
by religious authority, or sanctioned by it, could not
fail to be perpetuated. The faithful observation of
ethico-religious prescriptions assured in addition the
welfare of the race, thanks to the fundamental
hygienic, moral, or political character of those
precepts, stamped as they often were with the
marks of great prudence and lofty wisdom. The
worship of the totem, respect for objects tabooed,
have had, and we cannot ignore the fact, a useful
purpose in general civilisation.^

^ Lang, Custom and Myth^ pp. 245-304; Letourneau, op, cit,^
pp. 273.275; Chamberlain, op, cit.^ pp. 309 ^/ x^^.— XR.

PRIMITIVE SENTIMENTS. 1229

To the vivacity of the social-religious sentiments
was due the profundity of the aesthetic sentiments,
which, at the outset, in the case for instance of the
Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek, and Christian civilisations,
were affirmed in so imposing a fashion.

109. Differentiation of the Primitive Sentiments.

The dissolution of the primitive religious sentiment
broke the bond which united theology, with all its
paraphernalia of magic, sorcery, astrology, and
medicine, to politics, art, and science.

The history of the development of the artistic and
^scientific sentiments, is that of universal civilisation,
often interrupted, and often resumed by the different
races which have successively taken their place at the
head of humanity. It is easily proved that religious
fanaticism disappears progressively in proportion as
a race advances in the way of civilisation ; that the
art of that race ceases to aim at the sublime, and
becomes more attached to beauty and grace; and
that the love of science and the worship of truth
increase at the same time as the sentiments of
sociability.

The development of the scientific tendencies and
of sociability characterises our own age. We may
therefore foresee a progressive diminution of politico-
religious hatred, which is simply a survival of time
past; a new orientation of art, saturated with
generous, altruistic, and social sentiments, and a
considerable extension of the domain of knowledge,
as well as of the sphere of social work, institutions
of solidarity, of mutuality, of political organisation,
etc.

230 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

no. The Evolution of Sociability.^

Although the term "sociability" adequately in-
dicates an individual tendency, it is too vague to
indicate the complex factor which seems called upon
to play a preponderant part in the near future. For
an accurate conception of the idea we must consider
its evolution:

The constraint exercised in primitive times by the
" social conscience " on the individual conscience, is
not only shown by obedience to chiefs, to priests,
and to political power, but also, as we have seen, by
the constant disposition of all individuals to submit
themselves to a common rule, to adopt the morals,
the fashions of thought, speech, and action which
custom and tradition have determined. It is also
this constant and natural disposition which made
from the outset the power of the collective will so
great. It may be explained by a kind of instinctive
sympathy or spontaneous imitation, which by its
promptitude of diffusion very quickly gives necessity
and generality to a fashion, a custom, or a social
type. Such an aptitude is the point of departure
of sociability.

But when the power of collectivity appears to the
individual already considerably weakened, a new
kind of social sentiment must necessarily make its
appearance. The individual is adapted for life with
his fellows, no longer by a restraint of which he
is unconscious, but by the development of a generous
tendency which is favoured by life with weaker beings.
In the absence of this tendency, the division of social

^ Spencer, Principles of Psychology^ Corollaries, V. ; Principles of
Sociology f chap. vi. — Tr.

EVOLUTION OF SOCIABILITY. 23 1

labour, as M. Durkheim has shown, tends to substi-
tute progressively for the "mechanical solidarity"
of the first stage, an "organic solidarity," that of
conscious elements which are mutually complement-
ary, and have a clearer and clearer notion of the
services they render, and of the services that are
rendered to them ; such that they cannot live without
the help of others, although they are conscious that
they are rendering to others valuable services; such
that they cannot develop and be happy unless their
environment is in process of development, and in
possession of relative happiness.

Industrial progress, closely connected with scientific
progress, can therefore only develop a new sociability
near akin to the sentiment of fraternity and the spirit
of sacrifice.

As Spencer pointed out,^ for sympathy to attain
its full development in the human race, the keen-
ness of the struggle for existence must decrease,
first between individuals, next between restricted
communities, and finally between nations and races.
Now the most complete adaptation of men to the
conditions of existence imposed upon them by nature
and social evolution gradually eliminates the causes
of strife. The extension of means of communication,
the incessant mingling of different kinds of collec-
tivities, the necessity for numerous and different
associations, the co-operation which is imposed on
every domain of activity, bring natural sympathy
every day into contact with fewer obstacles, and
enable a generosity, which at first is feeble
and intermittent, to affirm itself with increasing
energy.

^ Principles of Psychology y Coroll. V., conclusion. — Tr.

432 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

III. The Religion of Humanity and of the Unknowable,

Can we believe in the near approach of a religion
of humanity as a substitute, according to Comte, for
every form of worship of the invisible divinity ? Will
human fraternity ever become equivalent to a religious
sentiment ? Spencer foresees a development of this
lofty sentiment which will no longer permit us to
attribute to the divinity low or vicious tendencies,
and an intellectual development such that the clumsy
theological explanations that have been formerly
accepted without a murmur will no longer be accepted
by any one, and therefore he forsees a purification of
religious conceptions rejecting the anthropomorphic
characteristics attributed from the very first to the
Supreme Being. But Spencer is far from supposing
that a confusion is possible of the Supreme 'Being
with the " Great Being, Humanity." He believes
that in the most primitive religion there was already
a part of truth, to wit, that **the power which
manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently
conditioned form of the power which manifests itself
beyond consciousness."^ The mysterious force, the
Unknowable, would thus be the God of the future,
agnosticism would be the religion of the future,
the product of the intellectual development, and
of the evolution of sentiments.

"Those who think that science is dissipating
religious beliefs and sentiments seem unaware that
whatever of mystery is taken from the old inter-
pretation is added to the new. Or rather, we may

* Howard Collins, ** Summary of Spencer's Philosophy," /yiwi*^i5?x
of Sociology^ p. 511. — Tr.

SOCIOLOGICAL ANTICIPATIONS. 233

say that transference from the one to the other is
accompanied by increase, since, for an explanation
which has a seeming feasibility, science substitutes an
explanation which, carrying us back only a certain
distance, there leaves us in the presence of the
avowedly inexplicable." ^

Spencer takes but small account of the evolution
of the social sentiments and of their influence on
the religious conceptions of the greatest number.
M. Fouill^e would seem to foresee, and rightly, the
approaching predominance of altruistic tendencies,
and of a spirit of social reform, of a kind of perhaps
rather mystical philanthropy, in the religion which
is destined to attract the favour of the multitude.
Without going so far as to suppose that people will
make of Humanity their God, Humanity being either
far too abstract to be clearly conceived, or far too
concrete to be idealised and to respond to the un-
ceasing craving for the mysterious, we may admit
that religion will become more and more impregnated
with sociability, and that the considerable influence
represented by ecclesiastical authority will be placed
more and more at the service of concord and social
peace.^

112. Sociological Anticipations.

We have separately examined the data of sociology
as to the past evolution of the principal organs of
social life, and we have thus indicated briefly the
foundations of sociological anticipation of which
we must now gather together the essential features.

^ Howard Collins, ioc, cit,^ p. 512.— Tr.

- Vide Mackenzie, Social Philosophy ^ pp. 324-327. — Tr.

234 SOCIAL EVOLUTION.

Thus we may form a conception as objective
as possible of the condition and the tendencies
of that society in the midst of which we live and
act, as far as we can, in harmony with our environ-
ment.

1. The evolution of the family tends to the dis-
appearance of the arbitrary power of the father and
husband; the family ceases to be a rigorously. close
community, its elements are dispersed and acquire
more independence, both from the mechanical and
from the judicial points of view.

2. The evolution of political life tends to the
suppression of caste, of oppressive hierarchies, and
illegal constraints; authority becomes organised, the
conflict of classes lessens, and ideas of equality are
propagated ; the law of contract takes precedence of
the criminal law, and distributive of repressive justice;
the governmental function becomes more and more
a magistracy, which exercises its action in all
directions in order to prevent injustice and the
abuse of power which is too often committed
by restricted communities. The State tends to
increase the extent of its rights and its functions, *
and at the same time accords to the individual more
liberty.

3. Economic evolution takes place in the direction
of the free association of workers and their grouping
into more and more powerful unions. Division of
labour increases the industrial power of humanity;
it frees the individual by giving him technical worth,
and by assuring him a share of the property that is
the result of his work.

4. The evolution of sentiment is effected by the
transition from political or religious fanaticism to a

INDIVIDUALISM AND ALTRUISM. 235

more informed and salutary sociability, thanks to the
progress of science, which, as it spreads, develops
more and more the love of truth.

Can we, then, give a synthetic unity to these
multiple tendencies? Can they co-exist, and if so,
how far? This is what we have now to inquire;
for the conception of the social Ideal cannot be
arbitrary, it cannot be far from reality, and from
what we foresee it can only be realised as complete
co-ordination is attained.

Let us notice in the first place that a general
tendency emerges very clearly from our separate
inquiries; social evolution in its totality tends to
make of the most civilised man a being more and
more free, under the control and the protection of
an authority organised to support the reign of law
by suppressing all despotism ; it also tends with the
help of his fellows associated with him in different
groups to make him realise the greatest solidarity,
and to develop the highest social sentiments. Does
not this tendency furnish us with the direct principle
of a rational construction of the social Ideal ? Are
not individual liberty and solidarity two relatively
antithetic terms that we have now to reconcile?

III.
The Social Ideal.

113. Individualism and Altruism.

Some contemporary moralists exalt the individual
to the extent of forgetting society, and others
preach a love of man which is equivalent to in-

236 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

dividual renunciation. On the one hand, extreme
individualism issues in social and moral anarchy; on
the other, an exaggerated altruism arrives at con-
clusions which are equally fatal to social life. It
will suffice to contrast two moral theories equally
in favour with the literary public of our own time.
They are, perhaps, unequal in scope, and their
success may well be ephemeral, but at least they are
worth taking as examples, representing as they do
two tendencies which the moralists must some day
take into account — the theory of Nietzsche and the
theory of Tolstoi. Nietzsche is the apostle of strife,
of force, and individual greatness. Tolstoi is the
apostle of love, peace, gentleness, and humanity.

114. The Over-man}

The basis of Nietzsche's doctrine is the conception
of the Uebermensch,'^ a product of this life, which
without an evolution towards a determinate end must
always " be surpassing itself," and which only offiers
peace to mortals as a " means to further warfare." To
Nietzsche, war is an instrument of progress, just as
to Darwin the struggle for life was the principle of the
perfection of species. War ends in the elimination
of the less fit, and in the advancement of the victori-
ous to the dignity of Uebermensch, created to lead a
flock of slaves, to give direction to life, to establish
a scale of values, a hierarchy of property. "The
true philosopher," says M. Lichtenberger, "is the

^ Vidg Fouill^e, * * The Ethics of Nietzsche and Guyau, " International
Journal of Ethics t October 1902, pp. 13-27; Maurice Adams, **The
Ethics of Tolstoi and Nietzsche," op, cit, , October 1900, pp. 82-106. — Tr.

2 "Overman."— Tr*

THE OVER-MAN. 237

genial poet in whose mind is formulated the table of
values in which each man of a given epoch believes,
and which therefore determines all his acts. . . . His
vision is nothing but the supreme law which receives
its impulse from past generations. . . . He creates
in complete freedom and independence, careless of
good or evil, of truth or error; he creates his truth, he
creates his morality."*

" I teach to you the Uebermensch,'' said Zarathustra
to the assembled people. " Man is something which
must be surpassed. . . . The Uebermensch is the
raison d'etre of the world."

With this conception of a moral ideal is connected
that of a whole social system. The masters, the
creators of values, play on the earth the r61e of
supreme legislators, of gods; thereby they assure
the happiness of their slaves, who are but moderately
intelligent beings without a will, vowed to obedience,
who must, have a secure existence free from responsi-
bility and care, who are quasi-animal in their humble
self-contentment (born of the illusion that there is an
order of things in which they are playing a useful
part). Between the masters and the slaves are the
warriors, the guardians of the law, governors, kings,
organs of transmission whose duty it is to carry out
the wishes of their masters, the real rulers. The
hero, the sole sovereign, the master, is not happy: his
duty is to ensure the happiness of inferior beings, and
he must attain the supreme degree of pain. He must
therefore "endeavour to bring into contact at the same
time his supreme pain and supreme hope." Pessi-
mism and melancholy cannot abate his courage;
"he ought on the contrary to learn divine laughter,
1 La Philosophic dc Nietzsche (4th edit.), pp. X 53- 153. Alcan> 1900.

238 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

and try to surpass himself in laughter and in the dance.
That is the supreme advice of Zarathustra." ^

This fantastic being who "sanctifies laughter"
experiences neither remorse nor pity. " This is the
new law, brethren, that I give you: be pitiless."
Pity is the last sin to which Zarathustra is tempted.
But while the God of the Christians died in his
wish to sound the wicked depths of the human soul,
and while he suffered from the shameful vices of
his fellows, the God of Nietzsche has assured his
triumph by respecting great misfortune and ugliness,
and sparing it his pity.

115. Sacrifice of the Unfit

" To spare future generations the depressing spec-
tacle of poverty and ugliness, let what is ripe for
death die; let us have the courage not to help those
who fall, but to push them farther, so that they may
fall the quicker. The sage ought not only to be able
to bear the sight of the sufferings of others, but he
ought to make them suffer without troubling his
head with the idea of the tortures to which they
are subjected. . . . Who would attain greatness if
he did not feel the power and the will to inflict
great suffering?''

The naturalistic idea of the struggle for existence
has never been more vigorously pushed to its ex-
treme consequences. No doubt Spencer had sketched
the process of "all those agents who, undertaking to
protect the incapable taken as a whole, do incontest-
able harm, for they check the work of natural

* Lichtenberger, op. cit,i p. 159.

SACRIFICE OF THE UNFIT. 239

elimination by which society is continually purged." ^
But Spencer had admitted the good effect of indi-
vidual altruism; he did not imagine, as did Nietzsche,
an elite charged with the duty of annihilating as
rapidly as possible the mass of unfortunates who
are made unfit for the struggle for existence by
their incurable infirmities or their natural weakness.

No doubt the ferocity of the master, the disciple
of Zarathustra, is simply frightful to our moral con-
science, fashioned, it is true, by several centuries of
that Christianity which Nietzsche abhors. Our
hearts are weakened, and we have spent ourselves for
a "morality of slaves." Under the pompous name
of "the religion of human suffering" would be
hidden on the one hand a decrease of vitality, an
"ignominious mediocrity," and on the other hand
the desire to give oneself an easy triumph through
the sentiment of pity.

" We do good to others just as we do ill to them,
simply to give ourselves the feeling of power, and
to submit them in a measure to our domination.
The strong man of noble instincts seeks his equal to
struggle with him. . . . The weak on the contrary
will be content with inferior prey. The pitiful man is
sure to meet with the minimum of resistance, and to
reap a success with the minimum of danger to him-
self." ^ And so, in the mind of Nietzsche, pity covers
with a deceitful veil both pride and the selfishness of
an inferior being without a spark of generosity. Pity
appears to him, as it did to Spinoza, a depress-
ing passion, which, by adding to the evils which

* Vide "The Sins of Legislators" in The Man v. The State,
passim ; Ritchie, Darwinism and Politics, pp. 28 et seq. — Tr.
^ Cf. Lichtenberger, op, cit,, p. 121.

240 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

are the lot of each the share that each takes in the evils
of others, increases the sum-total of suffering in the
world, and thus comes into conflict with a generally
admitted principle — that progress should tend to a
constant increase of the sum-total of happiness.

Nietzsche points out the danger that humanity
would run by over-indulgence towards certain forms
of suffering, by the excessive development of a sensi-
bility which would be apt to become morbid. There
is an unhealthy sympathy against which men must
become fortified, a sympathy displayed by neuro-
paths for beings whom a little severity would cause to
raise themselves, to pluck up courage, and to become
useful once more to themselves and their fellows.
The religion of suffering may serve as an excuse for
many of these weaknesses, and Nietzsche has stigma-
tised "that great volume of pity which is so remark-
able at the present time" as a manifest index of an
increasing fear of that suffering without which
nothing great can ever be done. " It is in the school
of suffering and of great suffering — do not you know
it ?— ^and it is under this hard master alone that man
has progressed. You would like if possible to abolish
suffering. As for me, I should like to see a harder
and worse life than there has ever yet been." In
reality, Nietzsche wants man to be stronger than he
has ever been, to be triumphant over suffering, and
to raise himself to happiness by a really manly
struggle, and this part of his doctrine lacks neither
beauty nor depth of thought.^

' Cf. Havelock Ellis, "Niet^sche^" Affirmations.— T^s.,

THE GOSPEL OF TOLSTOI. 24!

116. The Gospel of Tolstoi.

How different is this to Tolstoi ! " The gospel of
Tolstoi," says M. Darlu,i "differs but little from that
of the Companions of the New Life, assembled at
Boston by Thomas Lake Harris a quarter of a
century before.

" However, it seems that these noble ideas of pity,
charity, and pardon have never penetrated so deeply
into the human heart since the days of Christ. They
have impressed on our sensibility an almost painful
vibration." Tolstoi has, in fact, attempted a renais-
sance of Christianity, while Nietzsche was raising
his voice with energy against "a morality worthy
of slaves."

Wliat se^ms to me the culminating point in
Tolstoi's theory is his fourth commandment from
the Gospels.^ "Evil must not be resisted, but, on
the contrary, we must bear with every insult, and
even do more than is required of us. We must not
judge, nor must we have part or lot in any legal
judgment, since every man is himself full of faults,
and has no right to teach others. By taking venge-
ance we teach others to avenge themselves."

The consequences of this commandment are by
non-resistance to evil and injury, the suppression
of the whole military and judicial apparatus; by
the refusal to take part in a lawsuit, the negation
of law and of every judicial institution. No army,
no State, no Church, no means of coercion, even with
respect to moral persons; humanity forming a whole,
" living in constant contact with nature and at work
— that is to say, under the very conditions that are

1 o/>. cit., p. 33. 2 p, 72.

16

242 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

necessary to peaceful happiness," ^ the abandonment
of all the conquests of a civilisation which is detest-
able from its moral results — that is the social ideal
conceived by Tolstoi, corresponding to his ideal of
individual life; happiness in the "sympathetic and
free " labour of the fields, in family life, and in the
free and benevolent relations of all mankind.

117. Renunciation.

Tolstoi is the enemy of every tendency that may
awaken jealousy and lead to strife between man and
man, and that is, no doubt, why he condemns the
sexual instinct, while glorifying family life. " Love,"
he says in his little work. The Relations between the
Sexes, " from all that precedes it and follows it, and
in spite of all our efforts to prove the contrary,
both in prose and verse, never does and never can
give the means of attaining an object that is worthy
of man; it is, on the contrary, an obstacle to that
end, . . . and reason shows us that continence is the
only solution. ... Now let us suppose that chastity,
the Christian ideal, were realised: what would
happen ? We should find ourselves in complete
agreement with religion and science."

No doubt Tolstoi, later on, somewhat moderated
this rather bold statement. He admitted marriage as
a consequence of the " first common fall, considered
as an act of for ever indissoluble marriage," but on
the especial condition " that no one is harmed there-
by." Thus he presents to us the Christian Pam-
philus confessing to the pagan Julius his deep
, affection for Madeleine, but at the same time men-

* Kovalevsky, " La Morale de Tolstoi," in Morale sociale, p. 176.

RENUNCIATION. 243

tioning the obstacle which, until then, had prevented
him from carrying his project into execution. "A
young man of my acquaintance is also in love with
Madeleine. He is a Christian; he loves both of us
tenderly, and I shall never consent to cause him pain
by robbing him of every hope. Perhaps I shall
marry later when I am quite convinced that no pain
will be caused to any other person."^ Such a re-
nunciation of love in the presence of friendship
would have nothing surprising about it if it were
merely a question of an exceptional case, in which
friendship happens to be stronger than love. But
Tolstoi claims to lay it down as a constant rule, by
treating as brothers all those who place far above the
satisfaction of individual appetite a good understand-
ing, reciprocal confidence, and the common peace.

And just as he has sacrificed sexual love to the love
of humanity, Tolstoi sacrifices every economical and
political organisation to the ideal of peace. He
dreams of a patriarchal life from which all commerce
has disappeared, in which the use of money is
banished even for the purpose of almsgiving.
"Every use of money, whatever it may be, is
only the presentation of a bill of exchange drawn
on the poor, or the transmission to a third person
of a bill of exchange to enable him to pay the un-
fortunate." Alms will never cause poverty to dis-
appear: work alone can do that.

" I ought to deprive the unfortunate of the work
that they do for me, either by not having it done
for me at all, or by doing it myself."^ I ought to
renounce every luxury, everything that is superfluous,

^ Pamphile et Julius^ pp. 95-icx).
^ Tolstoi, Que Faire ? pp. 243-249.

244 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

to live the common life with the utmost frugality,
amid the riches of nature, and, as M. Gide puts it,
in a " homogeneous and amorphous " society.

Tolstoi is, in fact, the enemy of modern science
and art. " The sciences ignore the questions of life.
. . . Science and art have failed in their mission. . . .
Supreme wisdom has other bases than the human
intellect and science."^ His philosophy is in the
highest degree a philosophy of reaction with respect
to all scientific and industrial progress. It is that
of a peasant who has made a praiseworthy effort
to understand and to practise primitive Christianity
under its rudimentary form of love for humanity.
It has ignored social evolution and the craving for
justice, which is affirmed with increasing energy in
the conscience of the humblest.

1 1 8. Consequences of Non-resistance to Evil:

The dogma of non-resistance to evil is, no doubt,
that against which our natural tendencies most
vigorously protest. We might renounce industrial
progress to the benefit of our lives, and renounce it
the more easily, inasmuch as, since our needs increase
with the resources that are necessary for their satis-
faction, we are not really more happy from the
material point of view than men would be who live
the frugal life of the fields. But we cannot give up
scientific and artistic progress, which affords an ever-
increasing satisfaction to our insatiable desire to know
and to feel.

It is not in man's nature to be temperate in the
acquisition of knowledge as he is temperate in food
^ Tolstoi, Pensies choisies^ par Ossip Louri^, pp. 108- 112.

NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL. 245

or drink. Intellectual pleasures differ from the
pleasures due to the satisfaction of the nutritive
and sexual instincts, inasmuch as one is never tired
of them, and they do not arise so much from the
periodical satisfaction of needs that are being
periodically re-awakened, as from a sustained
interest and a permanent tendency which is never
weakened.

Intellectual pleasures, therefore, constitute a benefit
due to civilisation — a benefit we expect to increase
as civilisation progresses. The cause of civilisation
must be defended against every factor of reaction.
It is not so much our individual rights as the rights
of humanity that must be safeguarded against those
who, being in the midst of humanity, might disregard
them.

Non-resistance to evil would have taught our
ancestors submissive resignation to the worst type
of brigandage ; it would have placed inferior races in
complete subjection to superior races, and thus would
have irrepaf ably compromised the future of humanity.
No doubt we may try to substitute a state of peace
for a state of war, we may try to substitute an entente
cordiale and reciprocal good feeling for the violent
claiming of rights which are too strictly enforced by
some to the detriment of others. Man tends to have
less recourse to violence, and to substitute arguments
for blows, as he becomes more civilised, more fit to
use his reason.

Violence is bad, both because its triumph is often
opposed to reason and because with the appeal to
violence evil is multiplied. But blind love and the
renunciation of rights are not without dangers.

In many cases to give up a right is to make it im-

246 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

possible to accomplish a duty. The man who is so
fond of his fellows that he does not wish to cause
them pain, will be found in many circumstances to
be compelled to cause pain to one person in order
not to cause it to another, and if he abstains from
action he may cause pain to both. If he must
choose between the pain he will give to his wife,
or his son, or his brother, and the pain which he
may give to one of his fellow-creatures — perhaps
almost unknown to him — ^will he not be violating his
family duties if he prefers the happiness of the un-
known to the happiness of his relative, although
charity may perhaps command him to serve the
interests of the unknown and to sacrifice those
nearest and dearest to him ?

To abstain from criticism is to abstain from con-
flict; it is to give up what perhaps is the finest
element in human activity — the struggle for what
one considers to be good, the defence of the good
against the evil. Such renunciation must be due
to fundamental apathy or to great discouragement.
At a time when it is so difficult to practise tolerance,
Tolstoi comes and asks us to carry to an extreme
a virtue which we barely possess. And then, when we
want so many different stimuli to move us to action,
Tolstoi takes them away from us and asks us to
regard life with the eyes of a man who is dying.
In fact, the man who is dying is the only man
who has not to take thought for the morrow, who
may be called upon to return good for evil, for he need
not trouble himself to know whether in acting thus
he is favouring the evil at the expense of the good,
and injuring the cause which he professes to serve.
Or rather, he is no longer serving any cause; his

THE NECESSITY OF CONFLICT. 247

detachment from the things of this world is complete.
He thinks of nothing more but how to lead a holy
life, such as one would lead in a world of good will.

119. The Necessity of Conflict

Unfortunately, perhaps, the man who wishes to
live, and whose philosophy is, to use the expression
of Spinoza, a meditation on life rather than a medita-
tion on death, ought to prepare himself for triumph
and to assure the triumph of his cause. From the
moral point of view, the important thing is that his
cause shall be a good one. From the psycho-socio-
logical point of view, the inevitable thing is that
he is serving a cause, and that he is exercising on
himself and others an inhibitive power, the r61e of
which is at least as considerable as that of positive
activity.

Nietzsche has therefore taken human nature and
social requirements into fuller account than Tolstoi
has done, if, that is to say, Tolstoi has really attempted
to take them into account at all. The morality of
full vital expansion, which is exactly the same as
Guyau's, has been correctly brought into relation with
that of the Uebermensch, a morality which only aspires
to give life its full significance, and which is the
enemy of all mysticism and pessimism.^

" Above all," says Nietzsche, " you must see with
your own eyes where there is always the most in-
justice, that is to say, where life has its meanest,
most restricted, most impoverished, and most rudi-
mentary development, and where it can do nothing
but take itself as the end and measure of things,

* " The cancer," as Nietzsche says, ** of the old ideals and heroes of
fiction," p. 13. Preface to McnschlicheSy AlhumcnschlkHs^

248 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

where it can only grumble, and in a secret, petty, and
assiduous manner, question, from the love of self-
preservation, what is noblest, greatest, and richest —
you must see with your own eyes the problem of
hierarchy, and the way in which power, justice, and
width of perspective increase in proportion as we
become elevated."^

But if Guyau tells us to live with the utmost possible
intensity, Nietzsche adds: — Live in your own way the
higher life you have chosen; be your own judge and
a free man; be a creator of values by establishing at
first in your own mind a hierarchy of social values, as
you understand them, by realising them afterwards in
the face of every obstacle, by throwing into subjec-
tion the low herd of the humble who cannot determine
for themselves, and by entering into conflict with
other free men, your equals, who are likewise creators
of values.

120. Despotism.

"You must become your own master, the master
of your own virtues. Once they were your masters,
but they have no right to be anything but your
tools on a par with other tools." ^ The Ueber-
mensch, then, is above the moral law; it is he who
makes the law; upon him, a new Leviathan, depends
the conception that the whole of a faithful people
forms for itself of good and evil, of virtue and vice.

The subjective nature of moral ideas is thus clearly
proclaimed, and the most surprising part about it is
that their subjectivity does not lead us to moral
anarchy. M. Fouill^e, asserting that doubt is possible

* 0/>, cit.. Part I. Preface, p. 15. '^ Op, a'L, p. 14.

DESPOTISM. 249

as to the real hierarchy of the good, concludes there-
from a wide tolerance, a perhaps excessive extension
of the rights of the individual in matters of belief and
action. The French philosopher even extracts quite
a system of morality from this rather negative principle.
When in doubt, abstain.^ In it he sees the origin of
individual right, of liberty, of moral respect, and
therefore of duty. Max Stirner^ (Caspar Schmidt)
exaggerates these consequences of subjectivism, so far
that he will have nothing to do with liberty that
is granted. True liberty, he says, is what is taken.
And thereby he closely approaches the conception of
Nietzsche, for admitting no master, no law, nothing
superior to the individual, he advises his hero to
"desecrate" everything that religion and morality
have consecrated; to have none of the prejudices of
his age, none of the weaknesses of his so-called
fellow-creatures with respect to civilisation, the
State, the Church, the city, and the family. The
individual, like the Uebermensch, makes his own law,
and treats other men not as ends, but as means and
instruments.^

The views of Nietzsche are more complete than
those of Stirner, so far as politics are concerned.
Those of the latter lead to anarchy; those of the
former to a narrow subordination of the inferior to
the superior caste, of the plebs to the nobility, through
the clergy, army, and government. The classical
conception, notably that of Plato, thus finds in

^ But cf. " Les concessions k I'absurde . . . peuvent etre parfois
n^cessaires," etc. Fouillee, La Morale de Guyau^ chap. viii. p. 180.
— Tr.

^ Der Einzige utid sein Eigenthum. Leipzig, 1845.

' Zenker, Anarchism^ chap. iii. — Tr.

250 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

one of our contemporaries a new interpreter, but
with this difference,, that while Plato believed in
an objective ideal, and a world of Ideas serving
as a model for the wise man, the simple instrument
of divinity, Nietzsche wants his wise man to be really
an original legislator and creator. It is no longer,
then, the Good Shepherd, the representative of God
on earth, whom he proposes for our veneration; he
gives the whole direction of life to the aristocracy
formed by independent thinkers, not because they
are wise, learned, and prudent, but because they
are strong and audacious, and because their will is
brutally imposed and becomes law.

To the question that is so often asked — whether
might is right — Nietzsche replies with Hobbes and
Spinoza that might is the source of right.^

"Justice originates among men of almost equal
power. Where there is no power clearly recognised
as predominant, and where conflict would only
cause reciprocal and futile injury, we have the origin
of the idea of discussion and agreement on the claims
of both sides. The character of the exchange is the
initial character of justice. . . . Justice is a com-
pensation and an exchange on the hypothesis of
almost equal power." 2 Here, then, is clearly ex-
pressed the thesis of right based on might and the
reciprocal neutralisation of contrary forces. " Unus-
quisque tantum juris habet quantum potentia valet."

Nothing is more disconcerting to the reason,
unless we admit the Spinozist doctrine which gives
power to a being in proportion to his rational value.

* Vide Austin, Jurisprudence , pp. 272 et seq.y Note v., p. 284,
Lecture vi., and cf. Prince Kropotkin, Mutual A id^ pp. 76-78. — Tr.
^ MenschiicheSt Alhumenschliches,

THE MEEK. 25I

But the might that was in Spinoza's mind differs
totally from brute force as conceived by Nietzsche.
The former can never be overcome unless it is reason-
able that it really should be suppressed; the latter
can always be suppressed by a bhnder, more irrational,
and still more brutal force. And it is exactly this
oppression vof intelligence by a brute force, of
reasonable man by an unreasonable brute, which
is hateful to us, and revolts our tendency to the
subordination of the unintelligent to the intelligent.
That is why we seek for the law another foundation
than violence or the equilibrium of forces which are
ready to break out into mutual strife.

121. The Meek.

It may well be that those who physically were the
weakest may have had from time to time in greater
measure than the strong the desire of seeing morality
and law opposed to violence. Is that a reason for
claiming that the theoretical rather than the practi-
cal realisation of their desire has endowed us with a
" morality of slaves," satisfactory only to the meek,
to those with feeble will, and to characters of inferior
temper ?

Slaves really servile have never had the slightest
tendency to contrast their rights as men with the
power of their master. True slaves are those whom
Aristotle so admirably depicts,^ happy in their
servility, with no depth of thought, no inclination
for the life of free men, ever requiring to be guided,
sustained, and ruled.

Nietzsche perhaps was not wrong in his desire

* Cf. Politics^ vol. i. pp. 5, 13; Economics y I. 5.^Tr.

252 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

that masters should provide for the happiness of
these servile souls by maintaining them in obedience,
and imposing upon them the conceptions of free
men. There is surely some exaggeration in the
conception, born with Christianity and developed by
the success of modern democracy, of a humanity
in which all individuals have equal rights, equal
aptitudes for self-government and for the determina-
tion of the destinies of all. Ideas of equality,
although they appear generous, are sometimes
Utopian; and, in fact, we see in the most demo-
cratic masses a real subordination of those whose
minds are servile and whose intellect is feeble, to
those who lead them, whether by right or by sheer
audacity.

Demagogic manners and morals are not likely to
give to lofty spirits lasting and deep tendencies to
an effective recognition of the equal rights of all
men. They betray too much hatred in the many
with respect to the limited and selected few, too
much levelling down in spite of considerable in-
equalities, and they incessantly make us dread a
regression of humanity towards the forms of inferior
civilisation, for what dominates and most easily directs
the crowd is what flatters the meanest instincts of
the multitude.

And it is in this way that aristocratic tendencies arise
in superior minds through a reaction which, perhaps,
is instinctive, but to which reflection and reason give
both foundation and support. The Christian ethics
which loom so large in the eyes of the meek and the
poor in spirit lack moderation in their glorification
of the inferior man. It has rightly recalled to each of
us his duty of humility, and has changed instinctive

THE ARISTOCRACY. 253

and spontaneous sympathy into love, into a senti-
ment of fraternity which surpasses the bounds of the
city or the State, and which is lavished on the whole
of humanity. The exaltation of the natural love of
the animal for his congeners, of man for his fellows,
cannot be lightly blamed; but there is another
human sentiment, a sentiment too elevated to
appear in the brute creation, and one which it
seems quite lawful to develop — that of respect for
worth, of respect increasing with worth in pro-
portion as the stages of a social hierarchy are
ascended.

122. The Aristocracy,

If man had not been led by his nature to consider
in different pleasures and in different forms of good
the objects of his desires, so many stages in a
hierarchy of values, he would have never deliberated,
never have chosen, never have willed ; if pleasures
had only presented to him quantitative differences,
he would only have tried to accumulate them, and
to juxtapose them one with another in the course
of his existence. But, in reality, the idea of the
best has been from all time the directing idea of
his conduct, even when his appreciation has been
at fault.

Social evolution shows us the considerable r61e
played by this idea of the best in the organisation
of common life. There is no State without a
hierarchy; nowhere is the crowd homogeneous,
everywhere are chiefs, more or less temporary,
elected or hereditary, springing from the ranks of
the people or from a caste closed to the multitude;
even in our own days and in countries with demo-

254 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

cratic customs there are governing classes and other
classes which aspire to become the governing class.
These are commonplaces of history and observation.
At all times and at all places there has therefore been
a social hierarchy, and the effective sovereignty of
the strongest proceeds in most cases from what
has been considered, from a given point of view,
the best. This point of view varies: here it is the
best soldiers, there the best orators, elsewhere the
best merchants, the notable manufacturers or land-
owners; but everywhere it is the men who occupy,
or are considered to occupy, the summit of a scale
of social values.

Nietzsche recjuires the masters to be those who
have established this scale of values, and who have
imposed it upon the popular credulity; but history
shows that the scale of social values is prior to the
conception held of them by the men who are at the
summit. Napoleon could only create a factitious
nobility, an ephemeral hierarchy, although he reached
the summit of human greatness. The will of a man,
however powerful he may be, does not very deeply
modify the tendencies of the multitude. The hypno-
tised crowd may for a moment follow its magnetiser,
but the hypnosis is of short duration, and the suc-
cesses of the Uebermensch are ephemeral.

The social evolution is not at the mercy of the
caprice of genius; very rarely indeed are the tastes
of genius those of the crowd; the hierarchy of values
admitted by men of talent and science is not that
admitted by the people.

Is it necessary to remember that the mail of genius,
the saint, the prophet, the man inspired, the tribune,
affect social evolution only in so far as they are

THE ARISTOCRACY. 255

products of that evolution ; and that, so to speak,
they are inserted in a series of factors of the col-
lective future, not to oppose the other forces, but
to accelerate their action, and precipitate or retard
events according to circumstances ? Is it necessary
to repeat once more how simple is hero-worship, and
how powerless is ev^n the strongest human will to
modify the natural course of events? If Socrates,
Jesus, and Mahomet had not made their appear-
ance at the "psychological" moment, would they
not have been considered by posterity as visionaries,
madmen, or at least as eccentric ? Because they
had a place marked out in advance for them at the
very centre of events, and because their influence
radiated over a part of the world, each was a
Uebermensch, not because humanity responded to
his appeal, but because he in some measure
responded to the appeal of humanity.

And so, when Nietzsche asks us to recognise as
the supreme ideal his hero, the creator of a scale of
values, his suggestion is impossible : it is contrary to
the teaching of sociology and history.'

Individuals do not modify their environment so
much as their environment modifies and governs
them. The freest man, the man who is most deter-
mined to act according to his own whim, is still, in
spite of it, unconsciously a product of his own age
and of his own country. He unconsciously obeys
collective tendencies and common prejudices against
which he often cannot react because he does not
suspect their existence.

256 THE SOCIAL IDEAL.

123. Importance of the Theory of Rights,

The morality of Nietzsche is as unacceptable as
that of Tolstoi ; both are too much a priori — the one
a morality of abnegation, the other a morality of
might. Both abnegation and might only have moral
value according as they either of them serve a
superior and well-defined interest. Renunciation for
the sake of renunciation, and might for the sake
of might, are not the mark of a reasonable being.
We must know how to sacrifice ourselves, or how
to strive for a social ideal. Nietzsche's Uebermensch
could only become a moral being by agreeing to ful-
fil duties corresponding to his power; he had not so
much to create a hierarchy of values as to subordinate
the order of social values to the order of social
duties.

It is, in fact, on the theory of the rights of each
individual in society that the doctrines of Nietzsche
and Tolstoi come into their most radical conflict;
here both lack a solid foundation. This fact is a
sign of the importance which we should attach to
the organisation of individual and collective rights in
the ideal society.

THE FOUNDATION OF RIGHTS. 257

IV.

Rights.

124. The Foundation of Rights}

Liberty, in the positive sense of the word, is Right.
We have not the liberty to dispose of what we have
the right to possess; we have only the liberty to do
what we have the right to do; all other liberty is
only provisional, precarious, and is not moral because
it cannot be claimed. The increase of liberty ob-
tained in the course of evolution is therefore an
increase of individual rights. But on what founda-
tion do these rights rest ? Are they simply granted
by the community to the individual, by an arbitrary
decision of the State, or of the power acting in the
name of the community ? If they are granted with-
out due reason, they may be taken away again, even
if consecrated by usage. No doubt "customary
right" is of the importance that the "historical
school" has thrown into such bold relief. Rights
which result from morals, from local or district
customs, consecrated by the social consciousness
which has maintained them for numerous genera-
tions, notwithstanding variations and fluctuations
of different kinds, run the least chance of abolition ;
but we discovered in 1789 that they are not protected
during revolutionary movements.

We can hardly expect rights founded on fact to
be maintained except by force; but force, however
great it may be, cannot be assured of indefinite

^ Austin, op. cit,f Lecture XVL, pp. 393 ei seq, — Tr.

17

258 RIGHTS.

supremacy; and besides, as Spinoza pointed out,
there is no individual force which will not be inferior
to social power.

125. Natural Right}

But it has been claimed that there are natural,
inalienable, imprescriptible rights, although they are
often misunderstood. Such, at the time of the Re-
volution, was the theory which was inspired in parti-
cular by J. J. Rousseau. Man is born free — that is
to say, he has all rights, and the only limit set to
these rights is the requirement of respect for the
liberty of others. If each of us has not unlimited
rights, it is because he is not alone in an unlimited
world. It is because of the limitations of property
and the multiplicity of free beings that the rights
which each of us holds from nature are restricted by
life in society. Slavery and despotism have been
condemned in the name of these so-called natural
rights. But, as a matter of fact, the right of nature
rests upon the hypothesis of a metaphysical liberty.
This liberty may be disputed, for all metaphysical
entities have no well-established objective reality,
and men in general will always be tempted to ignore
such liberty, because for the most part they cannot
even imagine it.

To affirm a natural right is to presume to lay down
rights a priori, and nothing is more dangerous in
politics, nothing is more contrary to the scientific
spirit.

If our practical conceptions must depend on the
highest conception of all — that of a social state that

^ Austin, op, cit,t pp. 344 et seg. — Tr.

RIGHTS OF SOCIAL FUNCTION. 259

we are obliged to realise in common, ought not the
idea of our rights to flow from that of our social
duties ?

126. Metaphysical Right and Dignity.

The Kantians admit the co-relation of rights and
duties, and the priority of the notion of duty to every
other moral notion; but they generally make the rights
of a man depend on the duties that other men have
towards him, and notably on the fundamental duty
of respecting "eminent human dignity" at all times,
in all places, however miserable the bearer of the
moral law may be in other respects.^ Now we know
that this "eminent dignity" of which Kant speaks
has its apparent reason in the power of duty, and its
real reason in the "noble source and the noble
origin" of moral obligation, Liberty, the ratio essendi
of duty. So that we are brought by a detour to
rights founded on metaphysical liberty. And as the
liberty of each is not precisely fixed, the limitation
of individual rights, one by the other, becomes rather
a question of fact than a question of morality. It
follows that in reality there is in such a doctrine no
principle for the effective determination of the rights
of each. Besides, in the eyes of Kant moral obliga-
tion is indeterminate; therefore the right which is its
correlative is none the less so.^

127. Rights of Social Function.

That it may be enforced is generally considered as
the characteristic of a right. The idea of justice is

^ Cf. Austin, op, cit., pp. 285, 712.— Tr.
2 Austin, op. cit., p. 713,— Tr.

26o RIGHTS.

closely connected with the idea of legal restraint and
penal enactment.

I possess a right. Then you must all respect it;
That is the current formula. Looking closer, we
see that the right is a consequence, an effect and not
a cause; that most of the rights that we claim to
have respected are not connected with the person,
but with the social function that the person is sup-
posed to fulfil, so that if he does not fulfil the function
well he has partially forfeited his powers and his
liberties.

Nq doubt there are certain rights common to all
men, and attached to the human person in general ;
but it is worth noting that they are connected with
generous impulses, charity, and human solidarity; so
that if honourable men could not agree to fulfil
what have been called "wide duties," most of the
rights of man, qua man, could not be exercised, and
would not effectively exist.^ It is out of " humanity"
that we concede to the wretched the right to be
pitied and consoled for their misfortunes. But the
right to the free expression of his thought, for
instance, really only belongs to the citizen who
accepts the obligation of not creating disturbance
in the State by his wild speeches. Liberty of con-
science is not a right of man, qua man, it is a right
of the ripened man who has reached a sufficient
degree of intelligence and reason, and is capable of
fulfilling his duties as a good citizen. It would
therefore be important at the outset to have an
exact idea of the totality of our social obligations.
They are in fact of three types — those imposed upon
us by laws or morals, those which result from our

^ " Duty the basis of right," Austin, op, city p. 395.— Tr.

RIGHTS OF SOCIAL FUNCTION. 26 1

functions, and those which are derived from our
contracts.

We have already seen that those which are im-
posed upon us by laws or customs are so intimately
connected with those which result from our functions
that we can scarcely trace a line of demarcation
between the two domains. Every man may
consider himself as a function of the social state
in which he lives, and his activity as a function
of the complete social activity. There is there-
fore no reason for drawing a lasting distinction
between the rights of the citizen in general and
the rights of the citizen performing a public func-
tion ; the two groups can be united in one, that
of the citizen fulfilling under every circumstance
his social function.

As for the rights which result from the contracts
between individuals, they are very clearly derived
from the obligations that at least two individuals
accept who become "functions" one of the other.
In every contract we only acquire rights over others
because of our reciprocal duties. It is easily seen
that the rights which issue from contract are
very varied, and that they do not depend on a
moral theory except in so far as they depend on the
theory of contract in general. Now the latter, as we
have already seen, is subordinate in fact to the more
general right that the State claims for itself, to put a
check to the liberty of the dontracting parties, by
obliging them under pain of judicial nullity to observe
forms which are more and more rigorously deter-
mined. The problem of the right to contract thus
raises the problem of the rights of the State over its
citizens. But that brings us to the question of the

262 RIGHTS.

foundation of rights anterior to all contract, rights
founded on the exercise of a social function.

Evolution seems to sanction the increase of im-
portance and independence of the individual in pro-
portion as the division of social labour makes him a
more appreciable factor in the common prosperity.
History shows that aptitude to possess and to act
freely increases with the aptitude to perform obliga-
tions corresponding to conceded rights. Under the
feudal system the lord had many rights, because,
theoretically at least, he had many duties. "Until
1789 the eldest son in France possessed all the
family property, because he had all kinds of obliga-
tions towards his brothers and sisters. Everywhere
an exact correspondence tends to be established
between rights or powers conceded and obligations
imposed. Real equity appears more and more to
consist in the inequality of benefits corresponding to
the inequality of charges.

128. Justice and Devotion.

And so we are led more and more to feel how
complex a thing is justice. " Neither the mathema-
tical idea of equality," says M. Tanon, " nor that of
proportion, of equivalence, and of reciprocity, nor
the idea of harmony and beauty, nor that of the
identity and agreement of thought with itself, nor
even the wider idea of solidarity — each and all of
which enter in some measure into the idea of justice
— is its only source; they do not suffice to exhaust
its rich and varied content, nor to respond to the
warmth, diversity, and force of sentiment that its
evocation awakens in the minds of men."

JUSTICE AND CHARITY. ^63

This is because an equitable distribution of rights
implies, as we have just seen, a preliminary equitable
distribution of duties, and this apportionment on the
one hand can only take place in virtue of a general
conception of the social system, and on the other
hand can only be imposed entirely from without on
individuals whose good-will is indisputably a factor
of the highest importance.^

Obligations which are incumbent upon each of us
must certainly not only be accepted, but must be
spontaneously sought by the really moral being, to
whom we give considerable liberty and initiative.
According to the precept, "you can, and therefore
you must," the best men feel themselves morally
obliged to perform the highest functions that they
are capable of performing ; and that is why we find
at the base of social justice the generous impulse of
the man who loves his fellow-creatures, and who
works with a relative disinterestedness for the
common happiness. It is thus that we find socia-
bility and goodwill.

129. Justice and Charity?

Those who have tried to draw a distinction be-
tween justice and charity are therefore quite wrong.
The sentiments of sociability, and, in particular, the
love of others, the generous desire for expansion and
well-doing, are the most efficacious motives of deter-
mination by which a man agrees to fulfil obligations,
or effectively decides to fulfil them. If in the

^ On the Monadistic and Monistic Views of Justice, vide Mackenzie,
Social Philosophy ^ p. 134. — Tr.
2 Cf, Mackenzie, op, ciL, p. 265.— Tr.

,264 RIGHTS.

primitive forms of social existence the constraint
exercised by the collectivity on the individual has
played the largest part, we need not therefore believe
that this constraint has had to break down effective
resistances such as the selfishness developed by re-
flection or the struggle for existence.

Constraint was always exercised in view of a kind
of discipline of the activity, but there was in the
primitive social organism, as in the animal organism
from its birth, a spontaneous activity, and the spon-
taneity of the social elements was all in favour of
altruistic actions. This was for a twofold reason : in
the first place, because selfishness implies reflection
on the self, on its own value, and a differentiation of
the individuals which thus have different ends and
tendencies; and secondly, because the collective senti-
ments and tendencies, in view of common ends, in
consideration of the common good, were originally
preponderant in the individual consciousness.
Voluntary immolation, the spontaneous sacrifice
of personal advantages, and often of life itself, to
the interests of the tribe, are proofs of this.^

The primitive subordination of individual to social
ends, and therefore the fundamental disinterestedness
of human nature, seems to us to be established by
the indisputable predominance of sympathetic mani-
festations in the particular course of action of isolated
beings. Primitive man has not yet the prejudice of
his "eminent personal dignity"; he sees, less for
himself than for the whole in the midst of which he
does not yet clearly distinguish himself. If therefore
he has no merit in being generous, it is equally true
that he cannot be the subject of rational approbation

^ Prince Kropotkin, op, cii,, passim. — Tr.

JUSTICE AND CHARITY. 265

or disapprobation on account of his unreflecting
generosity.

This generosity is not synonymous with charity:
charity implies a clearer consciousness of the moral
value of individuals, and a keener desire for the
perfection of others. But it has both the spon-
taneity of the charitable impulse and the specific
character of love.

The r61e of the reason and of custom is to regulate
further the sometimes capricious course of natural
generosity, and for that purpose to provide at the
outset against whatever excess may appear in certain
impulses. Exactly because liberty of action is re-
strained, charity cannot manifest itself in all
directions. The individual learns to exercise over
himself a kind of check, and justice springs from a
twofold inhibitive power, one external and the other
internal, when increasing individualism involves the
selfish consideration of rights. The being, until then
devoted to the interests of the community, reflects
on his own interests, contrasts the latter with the
former, and claims from others the respect due to
his rights, while for the first time he recognises in
an explicit manner the rights of his fellows to receive
from him the services that he formerly rendered
them spontaneously.

The law consecrates this evolution of the general
conscience, and recognises that respect for certain
of the most general rights may be claimed if need
be by force ; while respect for other and more vari-
able and disputable rights is not guaranteed by it.
Hence the distinction which has played its part in
classical morality, between ** strict duties '* or justice,
and "wide duties** or charity; as if the accomplish-

266 RIGHTS.

ment of certain obligations could be, from the moral
point of view, more or less obligatory; as if one
could discuss with one's conscience and reason the
degree of the moral necessity of certain acts. It
should be understood that the distinction is drawn
between duties that may be required under all
circumstances, and duties which are imposed only
under certain conditions ; but the latter would none
the less be duties as imperative as the others, at
certain times, and in certain determinate places.

It is objected that the duties of charity are
dictated by the heart ; but we have just shown that
generosity is the common source of all duties, and
we cannot admit that because an impulse of the
heart has become a prescription of the reason and
the law, it differs fundamentally from the impulse of
the heart which may become a prescription of the
reason, without being for a very long time to come
a prescription of the law. And further, the generous
impulses, which alone are ratified by reflection, have
a moral value; in a well-organised society every-
thing that reason and generosity combined require
the law must tend to demand, in order that the
domain of legal obligations and the domains of social
and moral obligations may exactly correspond, since
there is no reason for their being fundamentally
distinct.

To sum up: the origin of rights is the same as
that of duties. All rights and all duties are of the
same moral importance, and a being possesses no
rights but those which he holds directly or indirectly
from the obligations which are incumbent on him,
either from a social obligation determined by custom
and natural evolution, or by his spontaneity as a moral

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 267

being, considering labour at the common task as a
duty in proportion to his strength, his capacity, and
his natural or acquired aptitudes. And so, not being
able to claim liberties and possessions except in so
far as we claim obligations compelling those liberties
and possessions, we have an exact idea of our rights
from the exact idea of the duties which we consent
to fulfil.

130. The Right of Property.^

No right is more interesting than the right of
property. By what has been just said this right is
the free disposition of suitable means for the fulfilling
of a duty. To what duty corresponds what has been
called " the right of the first occupant " ? This so-
called right is that of the chiefs who have divided
among themselves a territory; that of the farmers,
shepherds, V hunters, fishers, who have taken posses-
sion of a more or less vast tract of soil ; that of the
nations who occupy by means of their explorers
uncultivated and uninhabited territories. It is not
enough to say, as the Kantians^ and individualists in
general seem too prone to affirm, that in taking
possession of property, the possession of which is
undisputed, we harm no one, we injure no other
person's right, and we only use our personal right
to extend the dependencies of one's ego as far as is
possible without injuring the liberty of others. The
absence of competition is a negative condition. It
does not found a right. It is not the same as the

^ Spencer, Principles of Sociology^ chap, xv.; Austin, op, di,,p. 847;
Maine, Ancient Law , pp. 244-304. — Tr.
^ Cf. Austin, op, cit.f pp. 940 et seq. — Tr.

a68 RIGHTS.

duty that we assume when we take possession of a
piece of land, or when we take possession of a piece of
flint which can be made into an axe — the duty to use it
with the view of giving value to a piece of natural
property, to draw from it a profit for oneself and for
others, for one's own cause and for the cause of
civilisation, to make of it, in short, a means of work.

The obligation that we agree to fulfil, in the
absence of any other man who claims to fulfil it
better or as well, incontestably gives a right which
can be affirmed by resistance against any one who
may wish to expropriate the first occupant. But this
resistance has necessarily its limits. For if there
appears an individual or a community capable of
making the soil or the tool yield more for the good
of all than the first occupier can obtain from it, his
right is, so to speak, superseded by theirs. In organ-
ised society we see that under such circumstances
an expropriation takes place, requiring legal forms
at first, and a legal indemnity afterwards. This
duty is consecrated by the " Declaration of the
Rights of Man," when it asserts that "property
being an inviolable and sacred right, no one can be
deprived of it, save when public necessity, legally
established, evidently demands it, and then only with
the consent of a just and previously determined
indemnity." It is not always a rigorously inviolable
property which may be taken from its possessor
without indemnity; and that is exactly why, for the
expropriation to be just, the right of possession must
be essentially based on a duty of setting a value on
the duty of labour, in the wide sense of the word.

And it is this same duty which enables us to con-
ceive of possession as lawful — that is to say, the free

THE SHARE OF THE COMMUNITY. 269

disposition of the tools of labour. We want every
man to fulfil his function, and we ought therefore to
leave him the power of using at his own convenience
thdse tools or raw materials which are indispensable
to him for that purpose.

131. The Share of the Community.

Can we say, for instance, that the possession of a
machine can ever be absolute property? That
machine represents a large number of inventions
which constitute a social property, a collective
capital. This machine could not have been con-
structed without the co-operation of a large number
of citizens who have run risks, have shown devotion
and skill, and these are things which are not paid
for; the possessor of this instrument of labour is
therefore indebted much more than is generally sup-
posed to society, to the community, for that property
which he claims to be his own, but which is rather
a part of the public property placed in his hands.

And so it is with landed property. The field that
you say is yours, and that you surround with so
much care by high walls or strong hedges, owes the
greatest part of its value to the roads which are near
it, and which the community has built and main-
tained, to the railways which enable you to bring to
it the agricultural machines which are necessary for
proper cultivation ; it owes its fertility to processes
that you did not invent, to tools that you did not
create, and to the multitude of means which you owe
to society, much more than to your own labour.
Hence the fruit that you reap is not absolutely your
own. Labour in the sense of personal activity

270 RIGHTS.

cannot therefore, as many moralists and politicians
! maintain, found an absolute right of property.

" Labour," says M. Renouvier,^ " gives as it were
to the result obtained an individual consecration, a
seal of personality which adds to the proprietary
character of an object used for the first time
and necessary to life." * It is an exaggeration of the
scope of the rights of the individual to the detriment
of the rights of the community, whose services and
preponderating share in private activity we are far
too apt easily to forget. We do not work for our-
selves alone ; we work for the whole of society ; we
do our share of collective work, and we may there-
fore be the less disinterested in that work in propor-
tion as division of labour is more advanced.

132. Property and Reform.

But we work qud individuals capable of reform and
of intelligent and free activity; we are not machines,
and the dignity of the reasonable being can only be
safeguarded if we leave to the worker liberty, free
disposition, and property in his means of action.
Let the worker become less and less a machine, an
automaton, acting on others and with others; this
will make desirable the principle already laid down
of an increase of individual liberty. Property in
the fruits of labour is less imposed than that in the
instruments of labour.

No doubt it is quite fair that each should enjoy
advantages proportionate to his work; but it is
equally fair that each should receive means of action
proportional to his value, to his capacities or apti-

^ Sc, de la Morale, vol. iL p. 12,

HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION OF PROPERTY. 27I

tudes, to the importance of the duties that it is
reasonable for him to attempt to fulfil. Property
in certain means of action, such as land, machinery,
or tools, is further based on a foundation, though
slightly different, yet at least as well assured as that
of the individual possession of the fruits of labour,
or of the money which is the customary equivalent.

The right of individual property is therefore estab-
lished for all beings without distinction. The in-
equality of the rights of property is equally well
established. On the one hand, let us give to each
according to his proved aptitudes, capacity, and
activity; on the other hand, according to his merits.
It would be absurd to grant the free disposition of
considerable property to an idiot or to a being
incapable of useful social work.

It is therefore the duty of society to work without
relaxation at the just redivision of material property.
It must endeavour to procure property for all, and to
those who can render the greatest services to society
it should guarantee the possession of sufficient re-
sources. The right to labour, which was so ill-con-
ceived in 1848, when it led to the creation of national
workshops, is also the right to property.^

133. The Hereditary Transmission of Property,

Is not the right of hereditary possession an obstacle
to the fair redivision of the means of labour which
constitute property par excellence ? On what founda-
tion can be based the hereditary transmission of
property, if not on the duty of the preceding genera-
tion to secure for its successor, family by family, the

' Mackenzie, op, ci/., pp. 268 ei seq.

272 RIGHTS.

resources that are necessary for the accomplishment
of a social work which is ever becoming more
complex and more elevated ?

If inheritance of property has as its aim to ensure
to descendants happiness in idleness, it must be con-
demned as contrary to the first duty of the citizen,
which is action, the production of property destined
to secure to society a continual increase of the happi-
ness of all. Morality, therefore, cannot justify the
hereditary transmission of wealth which, when mis-
placed, serves no longer as a means of labour. It
cannot approve of the accumulation in a few hands
of enormous capital, which permits of idleness and
vice, without involving corresponding obligations.

On this point as on all others it is therefore neces-
sary to regularise the course of the social future, in
order to prevent enormous rights of property from
existing without the acceptance by the possessor, or
the imposition upon him, of corresponding social
duties. It is not a question of entirely suppressing
the right of the hereditary transmission of property,
although this right does not repose, as has been said,
on an absolute right of the testators to do with their
fortune what pleases them, or on the duty of respect-
ing the will of a deceased proprietor. There is no
absolute property; the individual only possesses by a
delegation, so to speak, made to him by society of
a certain quantity of means of action. But this
delegation naturally persists when the reasons which
at first determined it still persist, and when in the
children are to be found aptitudes at least equivalent
to those of their parents.

Hereditary transmission had its raison d'etre under
the ancient regime, when the inheritance of pro-

HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION OF PROPERTY. 273

fessions, posts, and offices involved the inheritance
of the means. It has its raison d'etre again as the
importance of professional inheritance decreases ;
for if the parents of the old regime were preoccupied
in preserving or buying for their children posts and
dignities, the parents of to-day are occupied in
assuring to their sons or daughters not titles
but aptitudes, not places but functions, in which
they will have to display intelligence, sensibility,
activity, and talent; and therefore the more right
the fathers of other days had of leaving to their
children the means of triumphing over difficulties
which are always reappearing, the more that duty
rests upon the fathers of to-day.^ The solidarity
of successive generations is thus formed in the family
in a moral manner, on condition that it has as its
end virtue and not inaction.

The solidarity of the members of the same com-
munity may be affirmed in the same way, and from
it results the right of bequest, which is a correlative
of the duty of social education. But it is easily
understood that as this duty, may under many cir-
cumstances be misinterpreted, the right of bequest
ought to be limited and controlled in order that the
intentions of testators may never be in conflict, and
may never issue in results contrary to those just
arrangements which are made by society to secure
an equitable redivision of the means of action among
all individuals.

If a right considered as absolutely inviolable, such
as the right of property, may thus be limited by the
exercise of collective action, we see that all other

^ ** For the Effect of the Abolition of Inheritance upon Culture," etc.,
vide Mackenzie, op. aV., p. 272. — Tr.

18

274 THE STATE.

rights have only a relative value, and may undergo
incessant fluctuations; and that their extension
depends, at least as far as the rights of the individual
are concerned, on the increase of the personal value,
of the value that the Kantians take as absolute, but
which is being ever increased by the unceasing
development of human intelligence and industry.

V.

The State.^

134. The Role of the State.

We have just seen how close is the dependence,
both in fact and in right, in which society holds the
individual; in fact, although the social contract
may have ceased to be the oppression of early ages,
and in right, because society has duties to fulfil.
No subject, then, can be of more importance to us at
this stage in our investigations, than that of the
determination of the powers of the State.

In reality there is only one right that the State
can exercise, that of legislation. It is that right
which enables it to have ministers who are formed
into a Government, and magistrates who are the
interpreters of its sovereign will. The ideal law,
being the prescription of reason itself, has ipso facto
every right over man. If a man is only moral in
obeying according to his nature as a reasonable
being, he is only moral in obeying the law. But
whence comes the right of the State to determine

' ^ **For Definitions of the State," cf. UoW^ndi, Jurisprudence ^ p. 40;
Austin, op. cit., p. 242.— Tr. .

THEORIES OF SOVEREIGNTY. 275

the law, and to impose upon the race its will and its
decisions ?

135. Theories of Sovereignty}

There are many theories of the sovereignty of the
State. Aristotle, in the second chapter ^ of the third
book of his Politics, attempts to justify the rule which
requires that in a democracy the majority shall
govern : — " That the supreme power should be lodged
with the many may be satisfactorily explained, and
although it may not be free from difficulties, it seems,
however, to contain an element of truth." Among
the Romans, the will of the prince had the force of
law only because the people delegated to him full
power .^ The principle of the sovereignty of the people
is therefore maintained, although an individual may
be considered as capable of as much wisdom as the
many. But the Roman Church was not long
before it contested the sovereignty of the State.
Gregory VII. and St. Thomas Aquinas taught that
the State is an accursed thing, or at least that its
power is of purely human invention. The Church of
God alone is the depositary of power; it alone is
invested with the right of dictating laws to man.*

Bodin,^ in his De Republica, admits as beyond dispute

* Vide Austin, op, cU., pp. 220 ei seq.\ and for criticism of Austinian
doctrine, z/iiflfe E. Robertson, Art. "Law," -£'«^y<:. Brit.^ xiv. p. 356.
— Tr.

2 III., chap, xi.— Tr.

^ * * Cum populus ei et in eum omne imperium suum et potestatem
concessit." /«j/., Bk. I. ii. 6. — ^Tr.

* The Eternal Opposition of Revelation and Reason,

* He defines the Sovereign part of the State as " Summa in cives
cc subditos legibtisqtu soluta potestas , . . quam Graeci AKpaP
i^ovaioPt Kvplav dpx^v, K^piov roKiTevfMt /tali Segnioriant appellant, ^^
Xfe Rep. i. 8»— Tr.

276 THE STATE.

"the absolute and perpetual power of the republic";
in his mind its sovereignty is indivisible and inde-
feasible. "Ea jura nee cedi, nee distrahi, nee ulla
ratione alienari posse." Of all the rights of the
sovereign (whether one or more) the principal is
** the power of giving laws to subjects without their
consent." As early as 1609, Althusius, in his Politica
methodice digesta, promulgates the theory of the
sovereignty of the State as based on contract. The
State is the last of a series of contracts, a series which
first comprises the family, the corporation, the com-
mune, and the province. Sovereignty is defined as
the "highest and most general power of disposing
of everything connected with the safety and the
well-being of the soul and body of every member of
the Republic."^ The people is the great political
creator, the real "king-maker"; the force which
concedes the power remains superior to the power
it concedes. The people is immortal. It is there-
fore the unique subject of a permanent power.
Contract is rather implicit than explicit. If the
interpretation placed upon it by the legislature is
not in conformity with the will of the people, then
the people have the right to depose the legislature.

Grotius denies that the sovereignty of the people
is inalienable; a nation may with its own consent be
reduced to complete slavery .2 Hobbes^ declared that
the people never did possess the supreme power
before it gave itself a master; the act by which
are established both sovereignty and the legislative

^ Politica^ chap. ix. 125.

2 Grotius, Dejure belli ac pacts (i. 3. 8; ii. 5, 31; 22, ii), vide
Austin, op, ciLf p. 234. — Tr.
^ Cf. Austin, op, cil,, p. 235 ; HolIanJ, op, cit.y p. 45.-rTR.

THEORIES OF SOVEREIGNTY. 277

power IS the contract by which the renunciation
by individuals of all their rights was effected.
Never was this idea more clearly expressed — that the
State is something official, a " being of reason " on
which all rights are conferred with a view to the
general happiness and maintenance of peace among
men. Having admitted that peace is the greatest
good, the State having as its function this supreme
good must dispose of all power. Locke does not
admit that the State has an absolute sovereignty;
each individual retains some liberty. To Rousseau
the general will alone is the right will. The
sovereignty of the people is inalienable and in-
defeasible, but it cannot be exercised by delegation ;
the general will is one and indivisible. " There is
not, and there cannot be, any kind of fundamental
law obligatory on the mass of the people, not even
the social contract;"^ but this contract gives to the
body politic absolute power over all its members.^

The historical school rejected the idea of the social
contract, and made of the State a natural product of
collective evolution. To Burke, Hugo, and Savigny,^
the power of the State was the result of tradition
and custom. Kant did not admit the historic reality
of the social contract, but in his opinion all real law
must be such as it would have been if the general
will had served as its basis. The idea of the absolute
sovereignty of the popular will reappears clearly in
the theory that the legislative power has all rights
and no duties with respect to the citizens;* that

^ Contrat social^ i. 7. ^ Ibid., ii. 4.

^ Cf. Robertson, op, cit,, p. 363. — Tr.

* Kant, CEuvres (edit. Rosenkranz), vi. 165. Cf. Thiorie dti Droit
(1797).

278 THE STATE.

there are no means of coercion which can be em-
ployed against the sovereign, and therefore that no
constitutional restriction or Hmitation can be made
to the power of the monarch. As Mr. Merriam
has remarked in his recent History of the Theory of
Sovereignty since Rousseau,''^ Kant's doctrine of the
power of the State is as absolute as that of Hobbes
and Rousseau.

Fichte admits a series of contracts by which
property is progressively constituted, and by which
protection, union, and subjection to the government
are effected.^ This subjection has for its end the
establishment of an authority capable of protecting
the rights of the citizen, an authority which must be
watched and which may be annihilated by a con-
stitutional assembly. " In fact and in right, the
people is the sovereign power, the source of all other
power, and responsible to God alone." To Schel-
ling, the State is the consummation of a cosmic
process [which has for its aim the reconciliation of
necessity and liberty, the realisation of an absolute
will, "the immediate and visible type of absolute
life." Schelling was one of the promoters of the
movement in favour of the divine right of kings.
In the opinion of many theorists on that right, the
theory of the sovereignty of the people was, as De
Bonald holds, a theory intimately connected with
atheism and materialism. The supreme power can
only come from God; the sovereign is the representa-
tive of Providence, and his rights are as unlimited as
those of God.

Hegel conceived the State as a real personality

' Columbia University Press, 1 900.
^ Grundlage des NaturrechiSy 1 796-97.

SUMMARY OF THE THEORIES. 279

having rights and duties.^ This being has "its
foundation and cause in itself." It is a person moral
to a higher degree than an individual. It is the
sovereign person, which may find its expression in
an individual, and which may be made objective in
a king.

The revolution of 1848 based sovereignty on
reason, and recognised an absolute sovereignty in
the "universality of the citizens." In 1832 Sis-
mondi, agreeing with Lerminier, had said : " National
reason is something much higher than public opinion."
According to Pierre Leroux, "sovereignty is the
power which descends from God into the human
mind and is manifested in the people; that is to
say, by the indivisible unity of all the citizens, the
real image of Him from whom it flows." ^ Proudhon
held that sovereign justice results from organisa-
tion, and is a natural product of the constitution of
the community, just as health is a resultant of
the constitution of the animal. " It need only be
explained and understood to be affirmed by all and
to act;" to it " belongs the direction of power." ^

136. Summary of the Theories.

Such are the principal opinions advanced by the
theorists with the object of legalising the rule of
the State, whatever its representative may be — king,
parliamentary assembly, popular assembly, elective
body, hereditary nobility, etc. Three great theories
disengage themselves from the whole. The first

^ Grundlinien des Philos, des Rechts (1821), sects. 35-36.
^ Projet d'une Constitution democratique (1848), art. 19.
' De la Justice dans la Revolution, i. 118.

28o THE STATE.

bases the rights of the State on the rights of the
Godhead ; the second, on the popular will, whether
that will be or be not considered as illuminated
by reason ; and the third, on that natural evolution
which issues in the constitution of an organ or of
a kind of judicial personality.

The first of these great doctrines brings us to the
legalisation of every arbitrary decision. When we
entrust to a man, or to a privileged body, the duty of
interpreting the divine commandments, or of making
known the divine will and of substituting himself for
Providence, we ought to trust blindly to this represen-
tative of the Godhead. We implicitly confess our
ignorance, our inability to know, our irremediable
mental and moral weakness; we find ourselves in a
flock for which we cannot even choose the shepherd.
But by what sign are we to recognise the elect of
God ? Here every criterion is at fault. That is to
say the whole theory is wrong from its foundation.
The second doctrine is really worth consideration only
because — with Rousseau, Kant, Pierre Leroux, and
Proudhon — the general will is represented as the most
capable of right decision. But the obstacle is precisely
the unsurmountable difficulty, so well pointed out by
Rousseau, of realising the unanimity of the citizens.
How can we disengage the " national reason " of
which Sismondi speaks from "the public opinion,
which, although in general far-seeing enough, is
often rather precipitate, impulsive, and capricious " ?
Where shall we find " this reason illuminated by all
the intelligence, and animated by all the virtues
which exist in the nation ? "

SOVEREIGNTY AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT. 281

137. Relative Sovereignty and the Social Contract.

If we cannot find it, we must give up the theory
of an absolute sovereignty, which could be only
justified by an absolutely right will. We must
admit a limited and incomplete sovereignty corre-
sponding to the imperfect intelligence illuminating
the State. Hence two conceptions are admissible:
either the sovereignty is transferred from the nation
to an elected king, responsible himself or through his
ministers, who is the first organ of political life ; or,
it is transferred to a picked body, whose mission is to
decide in the name of all — to a Parliament formed of
representatives of the whole country. In any case
the organ created to take the place of the direct
administration of the people by itself, the vicarious
representative of the sovereign power, has never
had, as Althusius, Locke, and Rousseau saw clearly
enough, as many rights as the sovereign people itself,
which grants to it all needful authority, but not
absolute power. Thus there are grounds for placing
limits on the rights of the State, contrary to the
admission of Hobbes and Grotius in their desire to
legalise the absolute power of the king, whom they
frankly substituted for the true sovereign.

But most of those who have admitted national
sovereignty have believed in a social contract, im-
plicit or explicit, and ipso facto they have given as
a moral foundation to the authority of the State a
kind of delegation made to it by individuals of a
portion of their power and right. Neither Rousseau
nor Kant believed that this contract has ever been
realised ; they none the less considered the State
as able to claim no authority other than that

282 THE STATE.

of the individuals composing it. The opinion of
M. Fouill^e does not sensibly differ from that of
Kant, in the sense that while making of the social
contract an ideal of spontaneous agreement with par-
ticular wills, M. Fouill^e remains an individualist,
and refuses to seek the raison d'etre of the whole any-
where but in an artificial grouping of its elements.

No doubt the force of the State must more and
more be based on the agreement, the " synergy " of
individual wills; but the existence of the State is
assured in fact, and is legalised on other principles.
At the beginning of human civilisation, social con-
straint was sufficient to create a central power in
every aggregate. As social constraint diminished,
the permanent action of the State continued to
make itself felt by individuals, as we have pointed
out above, in spite of the progressive substitution of
a contractual right for a purely repressive penal
right. The more important the contract, the more
the r61e of the State has increased from the judicial
point of view, so true it is that legislative and con-
tractual activity are entirely distinct.

138. Duties of the State.

The existence of a legislative, executive, or judicial
power does not then depend on the will of men ; the
State is a natural product, a natural being, as op-
posed to Hobbes' Leviathan, a monster imposed by
reason.

We thus come to the third of the great doctrines
concerning the State which we mentioned above.
No doubt it was not sufficient to say with the
"historical school'' that traditions and customs

DUTIES OF THE STATE. 283

confer political power, and determine the nature
as well as the extent of the rights of the sovereign ;
but it must be recognised that the evolution of the
State has as much importance as the evolution of
every other natural being. We must therefore not
endeavour to conceive a priori a r6le and rights of
which history will teach the future. Further, Hegel,
by insisting on the moral value of the State, on its
rights and its duties as well as on its supremacy, its
independence, the priority of its power relatively to
individual liberties, has broken completely with the
theorists of the social contract, although his idealism
has been approached by all those who claim that the
State has the sovereignty because it is the best repre-
sentative of the impersonal reason, and the best judge
of the objective value of maxims, precepts, customs,
traditions, collective tendencies, and morals.

We can therefore reconcile naturalism and idealism
by considering the State, whatever be the form of
government, as having in the highest degree the right
of regulating morals, of penetrating into private life,
not because individuals consent to it, but because it
is by nature and by right the highest organ of the
reason, and the fittest instrument to establish the
rule of the reason over man. But we must beware
of absolutist conceptions.

The State has rights, just as individuals have,
within the limits within which it can fulfil its
duties. Now, can it assume the responsibility of
every individual act, and even of a large number of
collective acts ? If it could, it would be because in-
dividuals or communities have no right of initiative,
no obligation to reform in order to contribute to
social progress. But invention is the doing of in-

284 THE STATE.

dividuals, not of the State, which has no imagination ;
so that individual minds must collate the common
data in their own fashion, and must meet at the point
of intersection of those great lines of imitation, which,
to quote the saying of M. Tarde, are like the rivers
which irrigate the sociological domain.

The rights of the State can only therefore be such
as to infringe on individual rights, by a reformation
prudent or rash, unfortunate or fruitful, and destined
to modify more or less considerably an aspect of
social life. But they .ought to be wide enough to
prevent the propagation of those " pernicious novel-
ties" against which all governments have made it
their business to protect themselves, as soon as they
have detected in them the revolutionary spirit.

Here, then, is the problem of the moral right of
citizens to revolt against a government which has
obstinately persisted in reaction, or of resistance to
social progress. Such a government evidently over-
steps its rights, and either it ceases to be the real
minister of the State, or the State injures the rights
of individuals, and goes to its ruin through ignorance
of its true r6le ; in the latter case the constitution of
the State on new foundations is necessary, and we
must go back to the real sources of sovereignty to
found a new political right. Such is the moral office
of revolutions, which, when lawful, are attempts made
by the greatest number to harmonise the effective
r6le of the State and the rational conception of that
r6le, at a given moment of the social evolution.

The present moment seems a suitable time for
giving to the central power a very complex social
mission — that of social organisation in every stage.^

^ Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology^ chap. xxii. 2 — Tr.

DUTIES OF THE STATE. 285

*' The more societies are developed," says M. Durk-
heim^ (and this quotation only sums up what we
have said above of the evolution of the central
power), "the more the State develops; the more
and more numerous become its functions, and the
further it penetrates into all the other social func-
tions which it ipso facto concentrates and unifies.
The progress of centralisation is parallel to the pro-
gress of civilisation. ... It may be said that there
is no more firmly established historic law." It is
the State which, " as it has assumed the power, has
freed the individuals belonging to particular and local
groups which tend to absorb it, such as the family,
city, corporation, etc. Individualism and * Statism *
have marched in history side by side."

If the State cannot be a despot, having all rights
over the individual, and if it ought to be freer in pro-
portion as it has carried out more obligations, it has
acquired more value of its own, and it is imperative,
as M. Coste has so clearly laid down,^ that the
central power should be more and more "the
liberator " of the moral person. " It is a question
of preventing usurpation and monopoly; of main-
taining harmony and holding the balance between
particular interests, and of resisting eccentric and
divergent enterprises." In the same order of ideas,
M. L. Stein assigns to the State as a transient obliga-
tion the duty of decreasing all abnormal power which
may check the permanent interests of civilisation.

Now the conflict of the living forces whose synergy
is indispensable to common life may compromise the
future of humanity. It means disorder in the present
and radical discontinuity in the future. The State

1 A'ev. Phil.^ 1899, t. xlviii. p. 438. ^ Op. cit.^ p. 190.

286 THE STATE.

must therefore extend at once the maximum of
rational organisation, and must henceforth proceed
with the regular increase of future social organisa^
tion. Politics is an art of foresight as much as
wisdom. To be conscious of a collective ideal, to
expound it with the utmost clearness to every mind,
and thereby to instruct and guide in the realisation
of a work of progress, is one of the first duties of a
governing body.

The State ought to be the focus of light which
illumines and revives, which guides and protects.
It has the right of struggling against everything
which is radically opposed to union, harmony, and
progress. That is why it must regulate all modes
of activity and existence into which an immoral
force might bring disturbance, and which it might
guide in a wrong direction.

The weak-minded man makes a false inference.
Let the law protect him from himself, for in so far as
he is badly advised he may injure himself and injure
others. The isolated individual may be exploited
by the usurer, capitalist, or the unscrupulous, who
profit by their power to impose upon him conditions
that are contrary to justice and humanity — let the
law declare null and void contracts thus imposed by
force. What is dangerous for the individual is the
sect which, forming a kind of closed community,
imposes progressively on its members obedience,
renunciation, and sometimes crime. Let the associa-
tion be free but not tyrannical; the law should, in
this case more than in others, protect the individual
in the midst of a blind multitude subject to the
domination of a few intriguers, and as such capable
of any kind of excess.

THE STATE AND ASSOCIATIONS. 287

139. The State and Associations.

Association in general, far from being proscribed,
ought to be encouraged; for when it is open and
remote from the sectarian spirit, when it imposes on
the individual no sacrifice either of his dignity, his
just rights, or his moral independence, it constitutes
the most efficacious protection against the despotism
of the central power. The State should aim at
organising resistance against all oppression, even
against that which a government might attempt in
its name.

The French Revolution, unfortunately, miscon-
ceived this duty of the State. It proscribed
associations after having destroyed the corporations,
which had made themselves odious precisely because
they were in some measure "privileged aggrega-
tions," in which despotism reigned, and thus it made
"unions" for a long time impossible. But we are
coming back to a healthier notion of the rights and
duties of the State as far as association is concerned.
"What frees the individual," says M. Durkheim^
again, " is not the absence of every regulating
principle, but their multiplication, provided that the
multiple centres are co-ordinated and subordinated
the one to the other." The State has therefore the
right to protect young associations, since thus it
fulfils its duty of protection with respect to indi-
viduals. It will even find before long, as M. Paul
Boncour^ puts it, a valuable auxiliary in unions of (
every kind, which only submit their members to i
special discipline in order that they may submit ,
themselves to common discipline, so that each nation

^ Loc, cit, , p. 239. ^ L« Federalisme economique.

288 THE STATE.

will form a kind of federation of associations which
will already have completed the initial task of social
unification.

The State will then be able to intervene in the
affairs of the community and of the elementary
social group, not in order to stifle its life and
spontaneity, but to regularise its activity, and to
place it in harmony with the activity of the other
organs of social life. It is thus that, to use M.
Tarde's expression, it will complete its part of
*' initiator " by its function as " regulator."

140. The State as Educator,

But in so far as it is an initiative power, will
it not be the duty of the State to take proper
measures for the development of the aesthetic, re-
ligious, scientific, and moral sentiments, which are
as it were the vital principles of the " social body,"
the essential appetitions of the common conscience ?
Does it not follow that there ought to be, for
instance, a State religion, an official instruction in
theological, scientific, and moral truth ? The question
is that of the duties and rights of the State in matters
of education and collective belief.

We have already agreed that the social evolution
of the collective sentiments tends to increase inces-
santly the love of science, to diminish the ardour
of religious belief, and to extinguish fanaticism and
intolerance. Is it necessary to oppose social evolu-
tion on this point, and to endeavour to restore unity
of religious belief? What moral interest could such
a reaction afford us ?

Religious unity cannot give us moral unity, for,

THE STATE AS EDUCATOR. 289

as we have already said, the same religious practices
may be in accordance with quite different forms of
conduct, some moral and some immoral; and
further, theological conceptions are so vague and so
difficult to accurately define, that their subjectivity
will always be an obstacle to identity of belief; in
short, the history of religion is a history of schism,
heresy, and heterodoxy of every description. In
proportion as the modern mind penetrates further
into Christian thought, we find that thinkers more
readily admit of free discussion. M. Sabatier, the
Dean of the Faculty of Protestant Theology at
Paris, declared some years ago that orthodoxy in the
Reformed Religion is sheer nonsense.

The State cannot, therefore, consider it as one of
its rights to establish religious unity. Can it con-
sider as one of its duties the equal encouragement
of every form of religious manifestation ? To those
who think that religion is necessary to social life, we
may raise the objection that public manifestations of
any theological creed whatever are of a nature to
wound the independent conscience, and a fortiori that '
of those who have a different religion from that of
which we may encourage the development. For
believers in general are convinced that they alone
possess the truth, and they consider it their duty to
combat error. The characteristic of a collective
belief being to manifest itself, one may anticipate
conflict; and we may fear that the intervention of
the State in the discussion of the causes of trouble
may not lead to the end proposed, namely, to the
harmony of all social forces and the co-operation of
every form of energy.

And besides, the absence of well-established re-

19

290 THE STATE.

ligious truth, an absence which would niake intoler-
able the re-establishment of a State religion, removes
worship and belief from the collective conscience and
makes of it an essentially private matter. The inno-
vations and modifications that a citizen thinks
should take place in traditional ceremonies concern
himself alone, and can only interest the State in so
far as the happiness or the unhappiness of the
citizens as a whole may depend upon particular acts
of piety or impiety. There is, therefore, no reason
to oppose the evolution which makes of religious
sentiments something more and more foreign to the
collective conscience, and which reserves for them a
safer asylum in the individual conscience.

It is almost the same with the aesthetic sentiments.
There can be no official art without outrage to the
individual right of free appreciation of works of art
and of independent taste. But the case of scientific
sentiment is entirely different. Science consists of
objective truths and of assertions that may be veri-
fied again and again. It is to the public interest
that scientific truth be established and extended, that
the worship of the true be universal, and that citizens
be initiated into that worship from their earliest
years. It is, therefore, the duty of the State to see
that scientific instruction is given to all, in order to
multiply the means of investigation and discovery,
and to extend in all directions the idea of fresh con-
quests of human reason and of methodical experi-
ment. How far, then, may be carried the right of
the State in matters of instruction ? Can it compel
its citizens to receive such instruction as their minds
can understand, can it reserve to itself the right of
directing study and forming their minds ? This right

THE STATE AS JUDGE. 29I

seems incontestable. Is not the duty of knowing
rational and scientific data closely connected with
that of obeying the reason, and has not the State
which ought to protect the individual the right to
arm him for his own protection, especially when the
arms that are furnished serve the material and moral
interests of the community? Just as the State
should take measures of general protection against
physical harm, poverty, and disease, ought it not to
take n\easures of general protection against intel-
lectual mischief, ignorance, and error? And if it is
therefore its duty to watch over the instruction of all,
it has the right to organise, to direct, and to apportion
instruction according to the interests which the social
system has to realise. No doubt it has not the
power to prevent any one from learning, or from
learning more, but it has the right to compel each
individual to learn as much as the individual degree
of intelligence and attention permits. With this
right of making instruction obligatory in general is
connected, for instance, the right of imposing military
instruction for the defence or the safeguard of all, in
whatever form and at whatever time is found suitable.

141. The State as Judge,

And finally, the State in the same way is supposed
to be provided with the wisdom that is requisite to
make^ the laws and to determine the duties of the
citizen; just as it is considered the born protector
and the born instructor of all individuals, so it is the
natural distributor of justice. Hence its duty to

292 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

establish a magistracy, and its right of making
arrests, to which when effected in its name every
citizen is liable. This magistracy is twofold: part
is administrative, and part is judicial. For the rights
of the State to be indisputable, in so far as it com-
pels respect to its magistrates, administrators, or
judges, it has one last duty to fulfil, that of choosing
as interpreters of the law men who are thoroughly
qualified both by their mental lucidity and by their
sense of equity.

VI.

The Economical Organisation.

142. Competition,

It is in the economic order that the intervention of
the State seems likely to produce important results
in the future. This intervention was for a long time
considered as likely to produce more disturbance
than benefit; it was thought that the domain of
economic facts is the domain of competition between
individuals. It would therefore have been necessary
rather to organise that competition than to seek to
establish an agreement. The struggle for existence
is a well-known fact of our own days, but this
struggle, which may be circumscribed among the
animal races, does not prevent a certain degree of
union and agreement among men in view of a better
existence. Groups may be formed to struggle against
other groups; the citizens of one and the same nation

SUBORDINATION OF THE ECONOMIC ORDER. 293

may closely combine in their economic struggle against
another nation equally combined.^

The best part of humanity in fact may constitute
itself into a single system to struggle against
animality, and may attain a more complete control
of nature. Evolution takes place in the direction of
the suppression of these struggles when they are
narrowly circumscribed in the clan, the tribe, the
city, the province, the nation. Civil wars are already
considered as anomalous. Certain forrtis of com-
petition become no less abnormal. Morality is as
desirable in economic struggles as in every other
sphere of social life. It would be contradictory to
lay down as a supreme duty the rational organisation
of collective life, and to leave political economy out-
side morality as a domain in which success alone is
the important matter, and in which the predominant
fact must be competition, while everywhere else in
social life is established the free agreement of indi-
vidual wills under State control and protection.

143. Subordination of the Economic Order to
a Higher Order,

Immorality consists in the forgetting of the
highest needs of human society, and in the exclusive
subordination of man to economic ends, such as the
acquisition of wealth or the production of means of
pleasure. The Kantians see in this abuse of human

^ Protectionists such as Mr. Simon Patten may look forward to this.
To them the aim of Protection is the full expansion of the whole
economic power of a nation which is called into rivalry with its
neighbours. Cf. The Economic Basis of Protection.

294 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

weakness the sign of a tendency to take humanity in
itself as a means and not an end, not to respect the
law of duty and the noumenal liberty in the pheno-
menal being whose "eminent dignity" and funda-
mental autonomy do not tolerate subjection.

We may not have metaphysical reasons for con-
demning the occasional degradation of reasonable
beings, lowered to the rank of beasts of burden, or
treated as mere instruments of labour. Reasons
borrowed from positive morality do not fail to justify
the condemnation of slavery and of analogous modes
of social activity. There is in society a hierarchy of
different orders. The order of economic facts is un-
doubtedly at the base as the first condition of other
orders of facts — political, aesthetic, scientific, and so
on. If man does not live by bread alone, he must at
least begin by being nourished, dressed, and aided in
his primary wants and self-preservation. Moreover,
it cannot fairly be claimed that economic evolution
determines the whole of social evolution. The
doctrine of "historical materialism" has certainly
insisted too much on economic determinism. As
may be seen by what has been said above, the
evolution of the means of production has in many
cases followed that of the spontaneous tendencies,
and of the desires that any "material want" has
awakened. The complexity of economic life has
political, aesthetic, religious, and social causes of
every kind outside the natural evolution of the
sources of wealth. But the inventions which con-
tribute to industrial progress are not in their origin
products of the human mind under the pressure of
economic necessity. They are the spontaneous fruit
of technical imagination, the direct results of the

SUBORDINATION OF THE ECONOMIC ORDER. 295

most disinterested scientific research. It may be
asserted that in many cases artistic or scientific
disinterestedness has given rise to economic interests.

We must let the order of scientific facts play its part,
which is extremely important although subordinate —
that of the totality of conditioned and conditioning
phenomena, but conditioning after the fashion of the
pedestal in granite or marble which is necessary for
the erection of a statue. The phenomena of wealth,
of production, of consumption, and of distribution
are means for the social life; we must not make ends
of them, and thereby enslave either individuals or
communities. This is the pitfall which most econo-
mists have not avoided with sufficient care.

The wealth of individuals or nations is in itself a
matter of indifference to the moralist. Wealth or
poverty do not increase or decrease morality. There
are certain wealthy regions in which, in spite of a
marked propensity to vices such as avarice or
debauchery, crime does not increase more than in
poor regions in which are developed vices such as
intemperance, ignorance, coarseness of manners, etc.
In general, very poor populations have more virtues
than populations which are weakened by wealth
and habituated to luxury. Poverty endured with
fortitude is a test of morality. But the possession
of a fortune interests morality indirectly in so far
as it should serve as a means of social activity*
Certain forms of good increase the public means
of arriving at scientific truth, artistic enjoyment, or
the full expansion of charitable forces. The moral
use of wealth is the expenditure of its revenues for
more and more lofty social work. It is of importance
therefore that the public wealth should increase, that

296 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

humanity should possess an increasing quantity of
material good, in order that the intellectual and
moral life of the community may benefit by the
leisure and the resources so widely distributed. But
if this be the case, what moral importance is acquired
by the problem of the production and distribution of
wealth! How closely is political economy sub-
ordinated to morality!

Now, if there is a natural evolution to promote, if
there are reforms to be realised, it is to the law that
we must appeal in the widest measure possible; it is
the State which must assume new duties and arro-
gate to itself new rights.

144. The Role of the State.

Let us remain faithful to the fundamental prin-
ciples which limit the rights of the sovereign in
private matters, the principle of the greatest possible
expansion of individual liberty hand in hand with
that of State control and protection, and the prin-
ciple of co-ordination and prevision by the central
power, in view of the progressive realisation of an
ideal of harmony and spontaneous agreement
between social forces of the most diverse character.
The r6le of the State then clearly appears to be that
of a power which promotes the economical evolution
of which we have already marked out the stages. In
proportion as the division of labour daily involves, in
a manner more and more marked, the triumph of
special aptitudes, we see the working classes unite
for self-perfection, and endeavour to form in the same
industrial establishment a great family, in which
each needs all, and in which all hold in just esteem

THE STATE PRINCIPLE AND THE CORVEE. 297

the part that is playec^ by each. Thus is realised
progressively the solidarity of the working classes,
a solidarity from which we may expect the greatest
good from the point of view of the protection of the
individual, of encouragement of the inventor, and
of aid in case of the artisan who is out of work or
suffering from illness.

The extension of the r61e which has devolved on
the unions, within the limits which have been laid
down above, is desirable and even necessarj^ With-
out granting privileges and monopolies which would
tend to turn all unions into new corporations as
detestable as the old, the State can and ought to
favour every group which may assist it as auxiliaries
in the work of the economic organisation of the
country. These associations will be able in pro-
portion as they acquire more power to realise vaster
designs and to give more breadth to industrial enter-
prise, and at the same time to increase the public
wealth and the well-being of all their members.

145. The State Principle and the Corvee,

Ought the State to go further and become a
kind of magnified union, the sole proprietor, the
sole distributor of work and property, a kind of
Providence which provides for the needs of all by
fixing the nature and the duration of the labour of
each ?

Suppose we admit that if men all work a few
hours a day at the production of objects of con-
sumption which are indispensable to material life;
all men may then be able to enjoy leisure, which
some may employ in scientific research, others in

298 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

works of art, and all in the satisfaction of higher and
properly human needs, — granted this, has not the,
State the right of imposing without exception on its;
different elements what has sometimes been called
the corvee ?

The right of imposing defined modes of activity^
with a view to the public safety, or welfare, or
health, or universal morality, is incontestable. It
has been in fact affirmed on many occasions. The
State exacts its corvee whenever no remunerated
service can fulfil the functions accomplished by all
with complete devotion to the State: for example
in case of fire, inundation, famine, or invasion*
Military service is the type of the corvee which is
commended by many socialists.^

If it were proved that social morality and the
collective well-being would gain in realisation by
the process which answers to the need of national
defence and of all work that the material exist-
ence of the nation requires, the State would not
hesitate to "nationalise" the principal means of
production, and those great enterprises which have
hitherto remained in private hands, and which
have been denounced as a tax on the public wealth
or harmful to the physical and moral health of all
the citizens.

But if Plato could conceive of the State as
charged, first with the union, then with the entire
education, and finally with the distribution to all the
citizens of functions and pVoperty, we must not for-

^ It must be remembered that M. G. Renard reduces to a minimum,
in his Regime socialisie (Alcan, 1898), the part played by these indus-
trial services, which, he says, ** would be secured by a process analogous
to that of military service."

THE STATE PRINCIPLE AND THE CORVEE. 299

get that he over-simplified economic life, which in his
day was anything but complex, and that he was in-
spired much more by the remote past than by social
evolution as a whole. Human civilisation began
with a very rudimentary kind of communism.
Social homogeneity, the common possession of
objects of consumption and means of production,
some reduced to products, others to the simplest
modes of activity, made a common life easy and
even obligatory. In our days the complexity of
collective existence has made it difficult to con-
centrate in the hands of the State the means of
production knd objects of consumption. Incessant
and varied exchange, by determining the expansion
of financial operations, has more and more com-
pelled the State to have recourse to the method
which most easily enables it to dispose of the
public revenue — viz., the process of taxation by
law and of expenditure by budget. The principal
inconvenience of the corvee system is the crowding
of individuals, often against their will, into manu-
factories or shops; further, it leaves no freedom
to the worker, as though the real worker were only
a piece of machinery producing at a fixed rate a
quantity of determined work. What is more im-
portant than the quantity is the quality, and that
depends on skill, and therefore on interest in
specialisation.

And what is more important than docility and
regularity is invention, which can only take place
by leaving to the individual the right of change,
and a right as it were to make mistakes, to make
experiments, and a right to consumption that may
possibly be fruitless.

300 TH5 ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

146. Taxation,

On the other hand, the system of taxes leaves to
the producer and the consumer the maximum of
liberty, while it permits the State to play the
broadest r6le that can be conceived. We ought,
therefore, to foresee and to admit a continued
increase in the pecuniary burdens imposed upon
individuals as the consequence of a continuous
expansion of the r6le which has devolved on the
central power.

Social evolution may rightly tend to make each
citizen according to his individual competence a
functionary of the State. To the regime of com-
petition corresponds the selection by competition
of agents who are supposed to be the fittest to
render services which are sometimes very complex.
To the regime of co-operation should correspond
the breaking up of the present great functions into
small and much more specialised functions, re-
munerated in each case according to the aptitude
of the individual to fulfil the duty assigned to him.
The time will thus come when there will be no
longer only a limited number of citizens who are
exclusively State functionaries, and when all citizens
will be more or less such officials for a few hours
a day, or for a small portion of their activity. In
that case the State will have not so much to feed
its employes as to remunerate their services, to
exchange with each citizen the means of subsist-
ence in return for those products which are in-
dispensable to the collective life.

Two practical problems will therefore be pre-
sented. How shall we redistribute the taxes, and

SOLIDARITY IN THE ECONOMIC ORDER. 3OI

how far can we make private enterprises public?
The latter problem may be solved in a variety of
ways according to the degree of civilisation and the
economic situation. At the present moment a large
number of States have already taken under their
charge a portion of the expense of public instruc-
tion, a portion of the expenses of assistance to the
sick and the old, and the protection and material
maintenance of poor children or foundlings. We
constantly see our Parliaments increasing their
subsidies and making fresh sacrifices to secure,
for example, cheap transport or certain articles of
cheap food ; on the other hand, we see great nations
paying very high prices to encourage certain forms
of cultivation, navigation, emigration, etc., thus
improving the condition of the farmers, sailors, and
colonists. The fact that an enterprise is of public
utility is sufficient reason for the State to intervene
pecuniarily and morally, and to partly nationalise
it by the aid of taxes. It is certainly not immoral
to turn in this fashion every great enterprise, which
is now private and of capital importance to the
national life, into a public concern, and thereby to
cheapen the means which are indispensable to the
subsistence of all. It secures for all, by means of the
public funds, at any rate assistance against poverty.
It enables all to raise themselves more and more
above the life of the brutes, and to taste of those
intellectual and aesthetic pleasures which ennoble
mankind.

147. Solidarity in the Economic Order.

For this purpose all must sacrifice to the State a
portion of their income. And it is exactly in the

302 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

variable relations between the benefits received by
the individual from society and the services rendered
by him to the common cause that human solidarity
can best be manifested. These relations most often
run the risk of being in inverse proportion. In fact, it
is not the man who is powerful by his intellect, by his
ability from this or that point of view, who will have
most need of the aid of his fellows; but, qua abler
man, it is only moral that he should owe more, and
that the social burdens which weigh upon him
should be proportional to his means of action.
We have seen, in fact, that as duty rests on good-
will, social obligations increase with the growth of
power. To pay a tax is one of these obligations;
and even if it be true, as we have often supposed,
that the tax will more and more take the place
of all individual contributions to the collective
charges that may be exacted by the State, we must
see in the payment of the pecuniary contribution
one of the first duties of the citizen, a duty the
higher in the hierarchy of moral obligations in pro-
portion as the economic r6le of the State becomes
greater.

One serious objection cannot fail to be raised to
such a conception. It is, that if the advantages are
not proportional to the services rendered, if on the
other hand the idlest and most unworthy of men
none the less enjoy the benefit of the labour of
others, a kind of premium will be given to inaction,
idleness may become general, and the social system
may collapse as a natural consequence.

If the objection hold good, it follows that the only
things that determine man to work are naturail
necessities and economic needs. Now we have

SOLIDARITY IN THE ECONOMIC ORDER. 303

already seen the exaggeration in the doctrine that
claims to make of material needs the sole motives of
human activity. On the other hand, do we not daily
see that the laziness of certain men is due to their
morbid disposition, such that even if hunger and
thirst were to prove a still more powerful stimu-
lant to labour, they would nevertheless remain idle ?
Is it not true, on the contrary, that a large number
of men work who need not ; and can we believe that
inventors, for instance, the great agents of industrial
progress and economic prosperity, would cease to
imagine, to study, or to make an effort, even if they
were deprived of all material recompense? It is
laying too much stress on the baseness of the
sentiments of the majority of men to think that the
cause of civilisation is compromised because bread
and shelter have been secured to a few wretches with
no self-respect. There is nothing which entitles us
to believe that once the most urgent necessities of
material existence are provided for as far as possible
by the care of the State, the individual would not
consider it a point of honour to give back to the
community the benefits which he has received from
it. Thus, on the contrary, an incomparable intel-
lectual impulse and an incomparable economic
activity will instil into the community an increasing
solicitude for all its members, and will secure for
individuals wider and more generous action, more
fertile initiative, greater wealth, and a well-being
which will always be favourable to their moral
elevation. Without prejudice to private property,
the problem of the conflict between labour and
capital will be made easier by the amelioration of
the lot of the lowly.

304 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

148. The Wages System.

Karl Marx^ has endeavoured to establish a filial
relationship between ancient slavery, modern serf-
dom, and the wages system. In reality, serfdom
from its origin is opposed to slavery, and the wages
system has been received with enthusiasm by the
adversaries of serfdom. As Letourneau has re-
marked, these institutions co-existed in Egypt and
Greece without causing confusion; in Sweden,
according to Dareste, serfdom has never existed.
The artisan, once so despised that he was not only
refused the title of citizen but also every moral
dignity, tends more and more to become an inde-
pendent personality even from the economical point
of view.

The wages system, which is nowadays so
vehemently attacked, is condemned to disappear
because it does not leave room for the moral evo-
lution of the artisan. In law, wages is the result of
a contract, by which a man engages to furnish a
determined technical activity for a certain number of
hours a day to a master, who, in return, engages to
procure for him certain material advantages, generally
a certain sum of money.

But as a matter of fact the regime of the wages
' system is often in opposition to the regime of free
contract. The conditions under which the workman
engages to work for his master are often imposed by
the latter, who, in union with most other masters, or
at any rate in consequence of a tacit understanding,
does not stop to discuss the matter with the work-

1 Capital, p. 550,— Tr.

THE WAGES SYSTEM. 305

man; and the workman, if he is not to die of hunger,
must certainly accept the offer.

On the other hand, it sometimes happens that the
members of a union impose their price on the master,
and being certain of success, have not to fight but
to command. It follows, therefore, that the wages
system perpetuates a state of war.

And there is a still more serious matter. Is not
the contract of the wages system a contract of hire,
which makes of the workman a thing, a tool, a
simple means of wealth in the hands of the
capitalist ? If we consider facts and history, says
M. Renouvier,^ the wage-earners incontestably " have
been placed and often even now are placed in a con- .
dition in which not only can they have no property '
of their own, but they are unable to acquire any. .
They find themselves reduced to the bare means of
livelihood from day to day, and so are shut off from
all more remote ends whether of an intellectual or
of a moral nature."

We know Karl Marx's^ theory of surplus-value and
over-production. Into the prices at which goods are
sold enter essentially the wages of the workmen and
the profit of the master. This profit is due to over-
production — that is to say, to the hours of " unpaid "
work which are imposed on the workman beyond the
number of hours that are necessary for the needs of
society.

The capitalist endeavours to increase the surplus-
value which results from the incorporation into his
goods of an ever-increasing number of hours of work,
and of an ever more considerable amount of effective

^ op. cit., t. ii. p. 86.

2 "Salaries, Prices, andTrofils," Capital, pp. 156-300, 516-541. -Tr.

20

306 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

work. It follows that, even without decrease of
wages, the profits of the masters increase to the
detriment of their men, and that life which becomes
more costly to the consumers is more costly to the
working classes generally, so that a rise in wages
does not improve their condition.

The morality of a few masters can do nothing
against these inevitable consequences of the wages
system. If they were to increase wages, or to reduce
the number of hours of work, they would be ruined
by the severity of competition.

149. Co-operation.

The State is therefore sooner or later called upon
to intervene in the present regime of labour, to fix
the judicial limits within which may be exercised
that individual right of contract without injury to
the moral dignity of the human person affected.
The regulation of labour, notably with respect to the
maximum hours of labour and the minimum wage,
must therefore be imposed upon the State.

This is the modern thesis which rightly assigns
to the State the regulative function which is dis-
tinctly proper to it. But can it be expected that
State regulation will be sufficient to give to the
working man adequate moral dignity? It seems
that there can be no moral satisfaction to humanity
until social labour as a whole appears as free co-
operation, in which no material or moral compulsion
is exercised by one set of men on another in virtue
of the power of the one and the weakness of the
other.

It is not a case of hiring the activity of an indi-

CO-OPERATION. 307

vidual ; it is rather a case of services which should be
exchanged between men having an equal respect the
one for the other, and a reciprocal esteem for their
different aptitudes. The division of labour involves,
in addition to the increasing specialisation of apti-
tudes and an increasing individual value, the more
and more marked independence of the good workman
who works at his ease, sells his labour or his services,
and receives, not the price of his hours of labour, but
the share that is due to his talent, his knowledge, his
skill, and his co-operation in a piece of work.

How much better would the legitimate pride of a
good workman and his independence with regard to
the master be secured in a society in which, in the
first place, free association would furnish to the indi-
vidual every moral and pecuniary support, and in
which the State would afterwards assure to all a life
free from pecuniary anxiety. It is not a question of
repeating the blunders of 1848 and 1849, and of
opening national workshops for men who are out
of work. The State cannot engage to find a liveli-
hood for a swarm of officials, who, if they did not
work would compromise the public weal, and if they
did work would cause such a competition with private
industry that it would be unjustly condemned and
would have to disappear. But the workman with a
family, wife, parents, and children to feed and to
bring up, both must and can, if need be, struggle in
defence of his legitimate claims against the some-
times overwhelming power of capital. Should he
claim in case of need his rights and those of his
companions, the conditions under which his claim is
made are the most favourable if his subsistence has
been made as cheap as possible to him, and if the

3o8 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

material well-being assured to all by the State has
enabled him to save and to protect himself in advance
by far-sighted economy.

We may rest assured that under such conditions
the right of striking — which must be recognised, for
it is the guarantee of the independence of the work-
ing classes — would be exercised peacefully; the fear
of poverty, of being a short time out of work, is the
cause of most acts of violence committed in the con-
flicts of labour; it is this fear that maddens and
blinds. When a powerful union maintains its mem-
bers, who are already strong in themselves, the
solution is easy and rapid. We see this in England
where the trades unions constitute an economic
organ of the highest importance.

150. The Work of Women and Children.

In the same way, thanks to such an organisation,
we might lessen the effects of the general tendency
to the employment of women and children, in so far
as that tendency is reconcilable with a healthy social
organisation. No doubt woman can play, and ought
to play, a r6le of more and more importance in political
economy, and she may contribute to the material
prosperity of a country by work which is pro-
portioned to her strength, and which corresponds
to her aptitudes; but she cannot without serious
inconvenience desert the domestic hearth, abandon
her children, and be compelled to devote herself to
continuous labour which removes her from the cares
of the household, and to a fatiguing toil which is
harmful to the exercise of her natural function —
maternity. As for the child, it cannot be employed

THE VALUE OF THE WORKMAN. 309

at an early age except to the detriment of its
instruction, its education, its physical and moral
development, and its technical value. The society
which cannot prevent the excessive labour, prolonged
or premature, of women and children is not a morally
organised society.

151. The Value of the Workman.

In a community in which wealth is distributed
according to social value, in which the worker is not
compelled by the most pressing material needs to
sacrifice his rights and those of his wife and children,
one of the first duties of every man is to acquire his
proper technical value.

Since a social system must be realised, no one has
the right to consider himself as exempt from working
on behalf of the realisation of this system. The
obligation of labour, that no morality but a social
morality can demonstrate, seems to me to be rigor-
ously established by the rational subordination of
individual to collective ends, by the subordination
of a system that is restricted to a system that is
wider.

It goes without saying that the word "labour"
must be taken in its widest sense, and that it simply
implies methodic activity continued with effort in order
to realise a piece of work, either aesthetic, or of urgent
necessity, whether scientific or political. Every man
takes up a trade, according to his aptitudes and social
needs. That the country requires a large number of
farmers or sailors is not sufficient reason for imposing
on the majority of its inhabitants the profession of
a farmer or a seafaring life; and that is perhaps the

310 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

mistake made by some collectivists when they practi-
cally ignore individual aptitudes by claiming to dic-
tate to each individual the career he must follow,
according to the economic necessities of society.
But, on the other hand, if a man have an artistic
temperament, that is no reason for his abandoning
the plough or the pick, the field or the mine, and
thus swelling the ranks of unappreciated painters or
musicians. In fact, we have sometimes seen the
liberal professions overcrowded and manual labour
neglected through our paying too much attention to
individual aptitudes and ignoring social necessities.

152. The Choice of a Profession.

A man may therefore fail in his duty as a worker
although he works with energy and talent, because
there has been developed in him an aptitude society
does not require, while it claims the equally possible
development of other aptitudes.

Social morality therefore enters even into the
choice of a profession, and this choice requires
both psychological knowledge and sociological data.
Parents cannot determine the future of their child-
ren, and young men cannot embrace a career
without the preliminary inquiry: what are the
necessary aptitudes? Does the future worker pos-
sess them ? Will society need such services ?

How useful therefore it would be if minute
observations were taken from the birth of the child
on his character, his mode of mental development, his
tastes both in the family and at school, his sensorial
imaginative and emotional type, and his intellectual
and practical capacity! Provided with such infor-

THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE WORKMAN. 31I

mation, the psychologist would be in a position to
pronounce an opinion on the value of the pro-
fessional choice made by the young man or by his
family.^

Then the sociologist would appear on the scene.
In most cases his place might be taken by any
judicious observer, who, for instance, foreseeing the
development of a taste for architecture or an interest
in agriculture, would advise the would-be artist to be
an architect rather than a painter, and the would-be
artisan to take up an agricultural rather than an
industrial career.

153. The Rights and Duties of the Workman.

A choice made with discrimination is the most
likely to be completely moral. Immediately it is
made it involves rights for him who accepts the
obligation of working with determination at the real-
isation of the social system. So far, the child had
a right only to tHe general education and instruction
which might adapt him to the special education and
instruction which he must henceforth receive. But
the right to apprenticeship results from the duty of
learning and of specialising, a duty which itself
results from the sociological law of the division of
labour.

This right devolves on the family, the city, and
the State, and even on every more or less restricted
community organised in view of the accomplishment
of a definite social function — such as, for example, a
union or a corporation.

' GaIton*s Life History Album (ATacmillnn) will be founfl to facilitate
the record of such observations, — Tk,

312 THE ECONOMICAL ORGANISATION.

It IS right that the obligation to give the young a
professional education should be divided between
each of these social groups. In general, the family
may assist apprenticeship rather than give it directly.
The city and the State may prepare for it very
satisfactorily, or may complete it by professional
schools; but it is especially to the associations of
trades, the guardians of traditions, the depositories
of ancient precepts as well as of recent innovations,
by which is affirmed the continuity of human effort
in a determined direction and on a definite point of
laborious activity — it is especially to these modern
unions, for which the most brilliant future is on all
sides predicted, and which we hope will render the
same services as the ancient corporations without
reviving their abuses — it is to these that we look
for the ultimate formation of the aptitudes of the
worker.

The master who nowadays undertakes the duty of
forming a workman substitutes himself for the whole
body of the trade of which he is sometimes but a
secondary element ; he is not always adapted to the
accomplishment of the task that he undertakes, and
often misconceives the extent of his duties. He has
a right to the obedience, the respect, and the grati-
tude of his apprentice, and to the gratitude of his
fellow-citizens; but only so far as he has the power
and the will to bring into society a new factor of
prosperity or happiness.

On the other hand, the workman with respect to
whom society has fulfilled its duties of general and
technical education has a right to consideration, only
so far as he is prepared to furnish to society a factor
of progress. It follows that it is his duty to make

THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE WORKMAN. 313

himself acquainted with everything connected with
his trade, and to bring into it that spirit of discipline
and of independence which permits of social reforms
and valuable inventions.

As for the workman with respect to whom society
has fulfilled all its duties of protection, by furnishing
him in free association defensive weapons against
every form of abuse, against poverty, against disease,
and against the despotism of the capitalist, is it not
his duty to strengthen in his turn a beneficent
organisation and to develop the moral and material
power of his association or of his union ? Can he
rest content with an increase in his personal comfort
while ignoring his duties with respect to the collective
wealth and the common honour ?

We have seen how the evolution of the forms of
property tends to the expansion of individual pro-
perty, both real and personal. This tendency has
been legalised by general considerations and affirmed
by a comprehensive conception of a social ideal. It
is the same with the tendency of certain communities,
professional unions, or other groups having for their
end the realisation of a common economical aim.
The extension of collective property, which is the
object of this tendency, is desirable in order to give
material support to professional solidarity, in order
to realise more completely the community of interests
of the workmen. The individual therefore must
labour at the development of the general wealth,
and he or his fellows must furnish to his group the
best means of defence and support.

314 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

VII.

The Family, Friendship, and the Collective
Sentiments.

154. The Rights of Woman.

Family evolution seemed opposed to the spirit of
authority which dominated the constitution of the
ancient family; hence the expression, the "dis-
solution of the family" so frequently employed to
indicate ,a future which did not so much involve
the ruin of the family as the decadence of what had
appeared to be its fundamental principle — the power
of the chief.

Ought morality to teach woman blind obedience
and unconditional submission to her husband?
Here it seems that the title of citizen or repre-
sentative of the State, and therefore of law and
reason in the family community, can be bestowed
on man alone. He has responsibilities, and he has
duties of the most varied nature. The wife, on
the other hand, has the most peaceful possible life;
she seems to have no right to anything but to
protection.

However, the difference between the faculties of
the man and of the woman is not so great that we
can assert that the subordination of the one sex to
the other is necessary in the future. "We do not
dispute," says M. Renouvier, and rightly, "that
many men are inferior to many women on the very
points in which we should say women are as a whole
inferior to men. ... It is true that if the faculties of
women and men do not differ essentially, they have

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 315

functions which are naturally diverse. It does not
follow that woman may be deprived of her right as
a reasonable being to determine her own choice and
to proceed freely in her own autonomy." M. J.
Lourbet^ asserts that "the apparent inferiority of
woman is accidental, provisional, and external in
the indefinite evolution of humanity, this inferiority
having its principle in the physical minority."

We know that Lombroso and Ferrero ^ have not
hesitated to admit that there are natural tendencies
to immorality in both women and children. Love of
children is the predominant characteristic of the sex.
It manifests itself not only in the nervous, muscular,
and bony systems, but also in all the other functions —
circulation, respiration, secretions, etc. The mater-
nal function injures the intellectual development.
" Intelligence varies in inverse ratio to fecundity."
Woman is inferior to man from the point of view
of the development of the sentiments. If she is more
irritable, more demonstrative, and more accessible to
the contagion which causes the collective emotions,
pain and joy are less profound in her than in man.
By a curious paradox woman is equally accessible
to cruelty and to pity.

Native criminality is less frequent in woman than
in man : " woman is an inoffensive demi-criminaloid."
She is much more addicted to prostitution than to
real crime. Now prostitution is not a result of
degeneration. " Prostitution," says M. G. Richard,*
" is a matter of exchange. It is one of the features

^ Le Problime des Sexes, Giard et Briere. Paris, 1900.
' La Fetnme Criminelle et la Prostitu'ee. Alcan, 1896 (in part trans-
lated into English as The Female Offender),
' Rev. Phil.^ 1896, t. xlii. p. 529.

3l6 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

of a type of society in which everything is valued in
money. It is an abnormal profession which has its
own school, its inferior degrees, and its aristocracy.
It is a trade to which a child is too often dedicated
by its family, with the tacit consent of indifferent
authority, especially when the child has that external
beauty which is rarely found in degeneration." We
may accept this opinion of M. Richard, recognising
that many young girls having tendencies to prostitu-
tion present the stigmata of degeneration: frequent
mental lack of balance, and a remarkable diminution
of lofty sentiments, stigmata which show them to be
akin to the " morally insane." The establishment of
a social cause for prostitution makes us even agree
with M. Lourbet that it is "radically wrong to draw-
conclusions as to the woman of the future from the
woman of the past. Contemporary science cannot,
by any absolutely determined principle, assert that
woman is incurably weak." Why should she have
by nature less sensibility or intelligence than man ?
Admitting with Lombroso that maternity interrupts
the development of the highest intellectual faculties,
admitting that the various physiological and psychic
disturbances which are inevitable in a woman may
place an obstacle in the way of normal and perfectly
continuous evolution, it must be recognised that the
feminine type which we know is — as I have said in
my essay on Mental Instability — the product of a
social evolution which is abnormal rather than a
natural fact, and not an immutably inferior type.^

Woman becomes more and more capable of work
and sustained effort. The competition of the sexes
in the studio, in teaching, and in all the liberal pro-

^ On all these questions see Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman.— Ivi,

MARRIAGE. 317

fessions, is beginning to be quite appreciable. In
particular, she brings into her intellectual activity
qualities of subtlety, penetration, and vivacity, which
in spite of a generally well-marked mental instability
make her assistance in the work of civilisation of
increasing value.

No doubt, in feminine emancipation there is a
pathological side which has been rather hastily
considered by all those who consider woman as
inevitably condemned to ignorance, fear, submission,
and inconsistent frivolity. The desertion of the
home, the loss of grace, taste, refinement, elegance,
beauty, modesty, and feminine charm, the leaving
of children to the care of hirelings, the neglect of
conjugal duties, and the hatred of regular life — these
may be for a certain time the price that must be
paid for the progress realised by the emancipation of
woman. But all the errors, all the faults, and all the
new vices of a sex which is boldly endeavouring to
develop itself along its own lines, cannot constitute
a proof of the inaptitude of woman to be more and
more a guide to herself and to act as a moral person.

155. Marriage.

Marriage was at the outset based on violence.
Rape is so frequent in primitive societies that many
tribes have retained symbols of it in their matri-
monial ceremonies. In our own days marriage
rarely implies free, well-reasoned, and reflective con-
sent in the contracting parties. Family traditions,
manners and customs, the spirit of caste, and the
tyrannical will of parents, often make of the legal
union a violation of the individual right. On the

3l8 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

Other hand, it is impossible not to take into account
the power of impulses, which often impel to acts of
violence, and make of fear and the accomplished fact
the point of departure of grave injustice.

However, an increasing share is given to the free
choice of each, and new. guarantees are ever being
taken against the pressure exercised by the family
or the environment. Marriage becomes more and
more a matter of contract between two individuals
of different sex, who wish to give a legal basis to
their sexual relations, a legal consequence to their
union. The State intervenes in this contract, as it
does in all contracts which have a legal value,
in order to regulate its essential conditions and to
assure that they are carried out. This intervention
is the first guarantee of respect for the rights of
woman and of the accomplishment of the duties
which are most generally imposed.

But it is hardly possible for the State to penetrate
further into family life, and to regulate the petty
details of existence — petty details into which, how-
ever, either morality or immorality must enter. As
M. Renouvier says,^ the only moral conditions in
the relation of the sexes are prudence and temper-
ance, "the mutual duty of justice and fidelity to
explicit or tacit promises, and the recognition of
the duties which arise as the consequences of the
relation." But is there not sufficient ground for a
detailed analysis of those duties which M. Renouvier
calls duties of justice ? Do not they comprise from
the outset the duties of love, which if they are not
strictly speaking obligations of justice are none the
less the most solid foundation of conjugal rights?

^ Op. cit., vol. i. p. 573.

MARRIAGE. 319

To compel a person to love, it will be said, is a
contradiction in terms. Is there not such an
opposition between the obligation and the spon-
taneity of love, that if love becomes obligatory it
completely disappears ? And so it is not a question
of obliging one of two married people to love the
other, but rather of making love itself the indispens-
able condition of moral marriage. No doubt it will
be objected that there are numerous cases of free,
sincere, profound, and lasting love following the
sexual union; but as nothing is more uncertain
than the appearance of such a sentiment, are we
authorised by a few examples of quite fortuitous
conjugal happiness to leave to chance the appearance
of one of its essential conditions, and to expect as an
effect of the sexual union what ought to be its cause ?
Some philosophers — men, too, w^ho are not with-
out weight — have offered artificial selection as a
remedy for what we call degeneration. Would it
not be far better to leave it to natural selection,
operating by the birth of reciprocal love and the
adaptation of character and temperament. No
doubt, if happy results are to follow, this implies
the intervention of the reason, called in to moderate
the ardour of certain pathological tendencies, and
to bring into play impulsive feelings and ends of a
scientific or moral order. And besides, this implies
a profound modification of the manners of to-day,
at any rate in most civilised countries, where the
young girl is kept most strictly on her guard with
respect to young men, as remote as possible from
real life, and is, theoretically at least, ignorant of the
part that she is called upon to play in society.

320 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

156. The Co-education and Equality of the Sexes}

Before we can give a lofty moral value to marriage
the education of the young man and young woman
must be quite different to what they receive at the
present day in France. On the one hand, the young
girl must be, prepared to fulfil her function as wife
and mother, either being adapted from her early
years to the social environment in which she is to
be developed, or being made strong and really
virtuous, instead of remaining a meek dependant,
always exposed to the risk of harm if the super-
vision of which she is the object becomes relaxed.
On the other hand, the young man must become
accustomed to a respect for the rights of the young
woman, and this will be all the easier when she is
able to claim those rights with more moral authority.

If, by means of these important modifications in
the relation of the sexes before marriage, love may
become an essential factor of the sexual relations
which are regularised by a public act, woman must
not after her marriage lose her dignity as a moral
being. She is man's equal, from the point of view of
law. "The idea of marriage implies this equality,
but this was not the wish of the man. Injustice has
made men illogical; and all the derogations which
the need of safeguarding personal liberty, and
the violation of duty on one side or the other,
could bring into the law of monogamy, have
been decided exclusively in favour of the man. . . .
Unfair laws and even more unfair customs are still

^ Cf. Comenius, Didact, 45; Munroe, The Educational Ideal ^ pp.
80 et seq,; Mabel Hawtrey, The Co-education of the Sexes (Kegao
raul).— Tr.

DIVORCE AND DUTIES TOWARDS CHILDREN. 32I

in contradiction to the reason which created mono-
gamy, and to this is due the gap between the real and
the practical social ideal. Hence arose the establish-
ment of another kind of slavery formed of the pariahs
of the family. Contempt for the law of equality in
marriage is its source."^

Properly speaking then, we cannot have sub-
ordination of the woman to the man without
moral decay. The harmony realised by good re-
ciprocal dispositions, by the mutual understanding
based on common obedience to the prescriptions of
reason, can alone secure the stability of conjugal life.
When in a family there is a master and subordinates,
there is either conflict or abdication, a state of war
or an abnormal weakening of will. Marriage and
the conjugal life should therefore be founded on
reciprocal esteem, on an equal respect on both sides
for moral dignity and individual liberty, on an affec-
tionate sentiment so profound and lasting, that esteem
and respect will ever form part of those sentiments
which can only be experienced at the price of re-
newed and more and more painful effort.

157. Divorce and Duties towards Children.

The right t)f divorce is the consequence of this
moral precept ; in fact, as soon as love or affection,
sincere esteem, and goodwill disappear in conjugal
relationship, why should we be compelled to lead a
common life which becomes more and more unbear-
able ? In the days of barbarism, when woman was
considered as an instrument of pleasure, one of th^

1 Renouvier, op. cit.y t. i, p, 579,

2X

322 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

greatest tasks of the State, in those days intimately
connected with the Church, was to prevent the in-
cessantly reappearing scandal of repudiation for
purely sensual reasons. Divorce was then pro-
scribed, and the indissolubility of the religious and
civil bond was energetically affirmed. But in pro-
portion as we advance towards a social state based
much more on right and duty than on force and
caprice, divorce becomes an indispensable auxiliary
of family morality — so long as it is only pronounced
in well-defined cases, and with all the guarantees that
can be offered by a social measure regulated by well-
defined laws.

If there are children of the marriage, the question
of divorce becomes from the moral point of view
still more complex, as it is no longer solely a
question of assuring respect for the individual rights
of the husband and wife, but of securing the accom-
plishment of the obligations they have contracted
with respect to their children. From the sociological
point of view, the principal raison d'etre of the family
is the duties that parents owe to their children. The
family, like the city and the State, has as its end not
so much the exercise of a power as the accomplish-
ment of duties. It is not so much a question of what
the pride of the Roman father, the patria potestaSy did
of old, as of the numerous obligations that nature
and reason impose on parents who are desirous of
playing the social r6le which begins with the very
birth of their children.

The solidarity of human generations, succeeding
one another and leaving one to the other the acquisi-
tions of past centuries added to those of the present
age, makes the duty of the present generation to be

DIVORCE AND DUTIES TOWARDS CHILDREN. 323

an incessant preparation for the social future. Society
is like a living being, which tends to persevere in its
being and to develop it. It endeavours to persist,
and therefore it assures itself of the future by the
procreation and education of children. The first
organ of social survival is the family. It may be
compared for two reasons to the organ of reproduc-
tion : first, because it has effectively for its end the
birth of new social beings ; and, secondly, because by
the early education that it gives, it perpetuates the
collective tradition, and transmits to new genera-
tions the spirit, the manners, the language, and the
aptitudes of previous generations.

If we can no longer speak of the rights of children,
at least we may consider the rights of humanity looked
upon as a kind of moral personality, as a system in
process of realisation, whose requirements create
duties to each successive generation, duties which
become greater and more numerous in proportion
as we advance in the way of civilisation. The
family responds to a certain number of these re-
quirements which are perceived and affirmed by
the reason. Hence spring the duties of parents to
their children, quite apart from the fact that the
natural sympathy of strong for weak beings,^ the
sentiment of tenderness to the children that one has
brought into the world, 2 must determine disposi-
tions favourable to their spontaneous accomplish-
ment.

The general duty of procuring for the child all its
material needs, food, clothes, etc., is not, in fact, of

^ Spencer sees in this sympathy the foundation of paternal and
maternal love.
- 2 cf. Bain and Espinas.

324 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

greater importance from the human point of view,
than that of procuring for it an intellectual and
moral environment favourable to the birth of those
social aptitudes and virtues which will enable it to
become as perfect a man and citizen as possible.

There is therefore a grave objection to the dis-
solution of the family, either by the hasty dispersion
of its members, or by the divorce of the wedded pair.

There are many cases in which a persistent ex-
ample of scandalous conduct is a greater obstacle to
the proper education of children than even divorce
itself. There are other cases in which, in spite of the
profound disagreement of parents, a common solicitude
for their children obliges the husband and wife not
to give up living under the same roof. The sense
of the duties contracted with respect to the children
should survive the ruin of love, affection, and esteem.
Divorce, the deliberate weakening of the family
spirit, may therefore in many circumstances assume
a character of immorality, and constitute a crime
with respect to society.

158. Duties of Children.

We may speak of the duties of children towards
their parents, since the former seem to have a func-
tion to fulfil with respect to the latter, and yet there
seems to be no reciprocity. Classical morality teaches
obedience and respect as the principal duties of the
child. Now, no beings as irreflective as children,
with a moral conscience as wavering and weak
as that of children, can understand duty and really
practise moral obligation. They have only the
habits and rudiments of customs that suggestion

DUTIES OF CHILDREN. 325

or education, and the example of the natural
authority of strong and reasonable beings have given
them. When they obey it, it is either because they
have not the least doubt as to the importance of the
command they have received, or because they fear
punishment. The authority that parents have over
their children comes to them rather from their firm-
ness, their justice, and their constancy, than from the
budding morality of young beings in whom there
scarcely yet exists either affection, or spontaneous
sympathy, or gratitude for the many cares and many
kindnesses that have been shown them.

And when it is a question of young people who are
capable of reflection, of reasoning, and of understand-
ing a moral obligation, the obedience that is due is
limited, for the very reason that a moral conscience
is entitled to a certain independence, and there is no
true morality without free appreciation and an ad-
hesion exempt from restraint. The more the young
man exercises his reason, the more he is independent
from the moral and the legal point of view. His
parents no longer represent to him wider experience.
They may have an intellect less capable than his
own, a less powerful mind, and a less reliable practical
judgment. Often they represent the past, that is to
say, the conservative and timid spirit, the enemy of
reform and of bold and generous enterprise.

There may be disobedience on the part of the
children, or, at any rate, nonconformity with the
advice of parents, without its involving any lack of
respect. Respect, in fact, does not really exist
until the moral being is in the presence of a per-
son having a high moral value. One may differ in
opinion with a person whom one respects; but we

326 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

must find in that person sincerity, and a keen desire
to possess the truth and to do his duty.

The quite young child has no real respect; he
has either fear, if he has been accustomed to brutal
treatment and threats, or a kind of simple admira-
tion, such as Mr. Baldwin^ has pointed out, for those
superior beings who seem to him to know everything,
to be able to give him the final explanation of every-
thing, and who never deceive him either in word or
act. In the young man and the adult there is more
often deference than real esteem, and we cannot
say that respect for aged parents ought to be
greater than that which is due to honourable and
famous old men. But the sentiment which is not
imposed, and which morality does not place in man's
heart, and which can be always fortified by showing
how lawful it is, and how well it agrees with the
family spirit of sociability, is filial affection, the love
for those beings whose devotion and self-denial have
often been the admiration of persons outside the
family community.

Thanks to this strength of paternal and maternal,
as well as of filial love, the union of the different ele-
ments will not remain the mere effect of moral will.
The spring of all social life is disinterested sentiment,
and nowhere is it more necessary than here.

159. Friendship and Fraternity.

The tendency to sacrifice, not to remain closely
circumscribed by the first community with which the
individual comes into contact, a community formed

^ Moral aud Social Interpretation of Mental Deve'opmetU^ \%if^

FRIENDSHIP AND FRATERNITY. 327

at its birth, which sometimes develops what might be
called "family egoism," should find support in friend-
ship. To have friends is a duty; the man who has no
friends is not in general a moral being. In antiquity,
friendship took precedence of love.^ It became in the
days of Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Stoics, a kind of
social virtue from which even the selfishness of the
Epicureans did not venture to free itself.

Long before, and in all primitive societies, the
sentiments of devotion to a friend, of sacrifice for a
comrade in arms, were celebrated as noble and
worthy of heroes. Friendship only flourishes in
the midst of complete social activity, hence the
Middle Agies were fatal to this sentiment. The
commercialism of the present day is equally fatal
to it, but the incontestable development of tendencies
to solidarity favours it. No doubt the love of one's
fellow-creatures in general, and the union of our
destiny to theirs does not involve that freedom,
confidence, expansion of feeling, and community of
tendencies which make friendship. But friendship
is at any rate the highest degree of human solidarity,
and everything which contributes to the expansion
of our generous nature is in favour of healthy rela-
tions between men who have daily relations with
each other.

With Aristotle, and in spite of a different concep-
tion of the value and of the r6le of woman, we do
not consider love and friendship as incompatible.
On the contrary, the love which is not allied with
friendship, and which is only based on tendencies

^ Cf. Dugas, VAmitU antique^ Paris, Alcan. Aristotle thought that
woman should be the friend of man, as I have shown in my course of
Lectures at the College des Sciences Sociales in 1901.

328 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

which are very easy to satisfy, is only ephemeral.
Friendship thus penetrates the family life, and when
it is a question of children in the same household,
it takes the name of fraternity.

In fact, from the sociological and psychological
points of view, there is no difference between the
sentiments that brothers and friends experience for
each other. There is the same confidence, devotion,
and community of interests. For, if brothers have
common family interests, friends have intellectual,
aesthetical, and political interests in common; and
if we compare the power of both from the point of
view of the stability of the ties of affection, it must
be admitted that the latter are more efficacious than
the former, and that the former must be reinforced
by the latter in order that the union of brothers may
remain cordial and perfect.

1 60. Man in Relation to Animals.

If fraternity, friendship, and family relations cannot
make us forget the solidarity of all human beings, and
must remain inseparable from the tendencies to the
universal good, must not our widest humanitarian
sentiments be reconciled with the sympathy which
might be extended to the whole animal kingdom ?

The struggle of man against the species which
endanger his existence or his subsistence is lawful
and necessary; but the torture that is sometimes
inflicted on brutes and wild beasts is more than
unnecessary; it is hateful, for it betrays low senti-
ments and morbid tendencies to cruelty which are
unworthy of man. It is sufficient for a race of
reasonable beings to guard against the risks that their

GENUINE HUMAN SENTIMENTS. 329

work may run, and the risks that they themselves may
run, from the representatives of the lower species,
different as they are from the most bloodthirsty
and the most ferocious criminals, because of their
incapacity to amend their ways and to approach even
ever so slightly to the position of moral personalities.

A fortiori it is unworthy of man to ill-treat the
domestic animals which do him service and are his
living instruments. Incidental considerations of a
metaphysical order should bring us to see in these
inferior brothers beings to be ever improved and
raised above the level they have already attained,
and therefore to be taken not only as means but
also as ends. In this way the rights of the animal
would be akin to those of the child. But a morality
which has a psycho-sociological foundation would
recognise real rights in beings with no real socia-
bility; just as companies of animals can only be
called " societies " by analogy, so the title of animals
to our sympathy and to our benevolence can only
be called rights by a distant analogy to the rights
of reasonable beings.

We have towards animals duties which are a part
of human obligations properly so called. Animals
have no rights over us, but we have rights over them
on account of those duties of protection and bene-
volence, etc., which we agree to fulfil, and especially
because of the higher mission which man has under-
taken to organise nature as a whole.

161. Genuine Human Sentiments.

For the better fulfilment of this mission, humanity
is profoundly distinguished from animality by the

330 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

development of the characteristic collective senti-
ments of a reasonable being.

In fact, nothing is of more importance than the
systematisation of the common tendencies by which
the social body imposes upon the individual certain
inclinations and certain ways of thinking, feeling,
and acting, which, in default of individual morality,
none the less cause the elevation of the moral level
in a nation or a race.

For the individual to be almost without difficulty
or effort courageous, clever, wise, and temperate,
his environment must esteem all the virtues which he
wishes to acquire. This environment must be for
ever holding them up to his admiration, and must
teach him nothing but aversion from vices such as
brutality, theft, vengeance, hypocrisy, immodesty,
intemperance, selfishness, etc.

It is wrong to consider such qualities as frank-
ness, veracity, modesty, boldness, sobriety, keen-
ness for work, and faults such as dissimulation,
effrontery, debauchery, and idleness as private virtues
or vices, only having an indirect relation to social
morality.

In general, it is the predominant sentiments in
the social environment that cause these individual
qualities and defects. We see the vices that I have
just mentioned rapidly extended in certain quarters,
certain cities, or certain nations: hypocrisy — ^be-
cause the popular sentiment being in favour of
formalism imposes a feigned generosity on avari-
cious or poor people, feigned nobility of mind on
the mean spirited, feigned knowledge on the ignor-
ant; debauchery — because luxury, commercial tend-
encies, and a liking for inferior appetites, have

GENUINE HUMAN SENTIMENTS. 33I

succeeded in obliterating from the public mind the
taste for beautiful things, for science, and for labour ;
selfishness — either because the spirit of economy and
of mediocrity has become general, or because com-
petition has developed in a more or less extended
circle the craving for material interests or success.
And so with many other bad habits more or less
harmful to collective morality. For the public
virtues to be gathered into a single group like in-
dividual virtues, for them to be closely connected
one to the other, and for the development of the one
to be concomitant with that of the rest, we must
appeal to the most complex collective sentiment,
and it can only fully exist in the common conscious-
ness when all the others exist therein.

Now, true charity is the love of one's fellows
with a view to their continuous perfection ; true
solidarity is that of beings united by a common
nobility of sentiment. To be charitable in the
widest sense of the word one must be very power-
ful and virtuous. If the charitable sentiment is
the predominant sentiment of a whole community,
it cannot injure individual liberty, equality, or rights
of any kind. Nothing that can injure the perfection
of the individual and that of the community can be
tolerated in that sentiment.

For this lofty tendency to be satisfied, the scien-
tific, critical, and aesthetic tendencies which lead
to the possession of truth and artistic enjoyment)
and which also have as their consequence veracity,
frankness, independence of mind, and disinterested-
ness in speculation and contemplation, must also
as a preliminary be satisfied.

When a city is proud of the wisdom and the

332 THE FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ETC.

talents of its principal citizens it is already not very
far from being virtuous. When the taste for in-
struction, for the formation of the mind is developed
in it, superstition, custom, and vile appetites are
already on the decrease. Religious sentiments may
sometimes have a happy influence; when they are
pure, or inspired by metaphysical belief rather than
by simple faith united with ignorance and super-
stitious fear, they have an indisputable aesthetic and
intellectual value, and their absence cannot but be
harmful to the moral elevation of a city and of
individuals.

The search foi^ truth and the love of the beautiful
can only be accompanied by tendencies to healthy
and practical belief which cannot exist without
courage, ardour, worth, firmness, and many other
virtues which make man upright and strong, and
the community powerful and honourable. The
spirit of chivalry which springs from a vigilant
opposition to everything that affects one's honour,
and to everything which reveals the abuse of power,
is the natural consequence of loyalty, courage, and
generosity when these sentiments are held in honour
in the community. As a correlative of this spirit
in man we have in woman the sentiment of modesty
and reserve, which is contrasted with the spirit of
luxury or ostentation, and the gross manners in-
spired by low inclinations. Modesty has increased
as a collective sentiment in woman in proportion
as civilisation has freed her from a despotism and
from a very often degrading yoke.

The more independence a woman has the more she
must abstain from provoking in man those sensual
feelings which are founded on a lack of respect for

GENUINE HUMAN SENTIMENTS. 333

the moral person, and which have as their effect
brutal aggressions or insidious tactics which are more
characteristic of the lower animals. Moral dignity
is imprinted on the chastity of the maid and the
wife, and that is what makes it so valuable to the
common conscience. When the public spirit allows
without protest immodesty, debauchery, and pros-
titution, the existence of the worst vices may be
suspected.

The spirit of moderation, tendencies to sobriety
and frugality, on condition that they do not involve
a reprehensible taste for mediocrity, constitute the
very basis of public virtues. A people prone to
excess in love and in hatred in its appetites and in
its inclinations, lacks stability, and places an insuper-
able obstacle in the way of all moral discipline.

Thus, from the sentiments of moderation to the
spirit of charity there is a hierarchy of collective
tendencies, and the regular development and sub-
ordination of these tendencies to a sublime sentiment
of fraternity can alone assure social and individual
morality.

PART IV.

THE STRUGGLE AGAINST IMMORALITY,

I. Social Responsibility.

162. Conditions of Responsibility, Intention — 163.
Errors of Appreciation — 164. Insufficient Deliberation
— 165. Irresponsibility — 166. Possible Modification of
the Character— 167, Impui ability — 168. Social Action,

II. Sanction and Moral Education.

169. Rdle and Nature of Sanction — 170. Happiness the
Natural Consequence of Moral Action^ 171. Merit — 172.
The Immorality of Punishment— 17^. Utilitarian Rdle of
Punishment — 174. Moral Suggestion.

I.

Social Responsibility.

162. Conditions of Responsibility. Intention.'

We have now seen how individual and collective
morality are each in turn subordinated to a system
of tendencies, any defect in which involves crime,
misdemeanour, or fault. For good actions to be
accomplished, the individual, the State, the family,
the association, the city, should be submitted in
their evolution to certain rules which flow from a
scientific conception of the social ideal as a whole ;

334

CONDITIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY. 335

each element or group must have its own tendency,
but that tendency must be harmonised with the
tendency of the whole.

If it be not so, and if we may not hope that it will
ever be so, — for no doubt there always will be in a
system as complex as humanity disorders, abnormal
facts, and reprehensible acts, — who are the guilty?
and how are the guilty to be punished? or rather,
if there are no guilty whom one ought to punish,
on whom should fall the responsibility for misde-
meanours, and what ought to be done to prevent
repetition of the faults ?

Let us first examine under what conditions
responsibility is established. Moralists from the
days of Kant have as a rule connected responsi-
bility with intention. Let us then analyse this new
fact.

Kant endeavoured to reduce intention to moral
respect, and this respect to a sentiment of dis-
interestedness and humility in our ego, and of
admiration for the moral law.-^

Besides, Kant perceived little in the throng of
motives antagonistic to morality but egoism and
presumption (self-love and self-satisfaction). In
that case, the moral idea can only consist of an
antagonistic sentiment which is also but slightly
complex.^

Moral intention in the psychological processus
must be replaced by voluntary deliberation, so that
we may see simultaneously its variability and its
importance. The vague sentiment of doing one's

^ Cf. "The springs of pure practical reason," Kritik of Practical
Reason,
3 Ibid^y p. 130.

336 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

duty cannot satisfy us. We desire to fulfil a deter-
mined obligation, and as far as possible to fulfil
all the obligations the totality of which gives us
a function in the social system. Now can we simul-
taneously perceive all our obligations? can we
under given circumstances think of the manifold
duties which are incumbent upon us? Is not the
time for the deliberation which is at our disposal
for evoking our different obligations almost always
too short considering the weakness of our intellect;
and are we not in a large number of cases conscious
of our limited aptitude to examine every side of a
question, and to judge of all the consequences which
immediately result from our acts ? (I do not speak
of remote consequences, most of which escape us.)
And does there not follow from this intellectual
incapacity a sentiment, almost of melancholy, which
makes us decide to act while we are fully conscious
of running a risk, the risk of self-deception? But
another sentiment immediately springs into being
by contrast, that of having done as much as possible
to diminish the importance of the risk that is run.

Those who are not conscious of their relative
intellectual weakness, of their incapacity to perceive
all the consequences of their decision, do not ex-
perience this feeling of risk. They have no anxiety
beyond the sphere of the effects foreseen.

For these effects to be accepted, and for their cause
to be admitted with moral intention as the end of
the voluntary act, they must satisfy certain tendencies.
Now it very rarely happens that this is a simple
desire for systematic action, purely moral, and con-
stituting the whole intention. It may happen that
certain tendencies, some generous, others selfish.

ERRORS OF APPRECIATION. 337

some ^esthetic, and others quite inferior, may all share
in the voluntary determination and combine their
influence. Frequently one desire appears as pre-
dominant and masks the importance of others,
less lofty or quite different, which also urge to
action, and are inseparable from moral intention pro-
perly so called. And further, the desire for rational
ends, for action morally good, may appear in us after
selfish desires or appetites of an inferior order
have already determined our choice, and when the^
moral intention is only a cloak under which are dis-
guised quite different intentions, of which our con-
science is the dupe.

What is then in this case the value of intention
from the point of view of the responsibility of the
agent ? Shall we say that because the intention was
good, because the agent sincerely believed that he
was doing his duty, he is not responsible for the
fatal consequences of his choice ? Is it not far better
to see the real motives of the voluntary decision, and
ought we not to consider the efficient factors rather
than the apparent factor ?

163. Errors of Appreciation.

How many people are deceived as to the moral
value of the ends which they propose to themselves,
and of the desires which urge them to propose to
themselves such ends.

The old Socratic doctrine which declared that no
one was voluntarily wicked, borrows some force from
this consideration. Few men are conscious of the
baseness of their motives, and almost all are under
an illusion as to the real motives of their voluntary

22

338 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

. *
decisions. How can a being, born amid prostitution,

brought up in the low quarters of a great town, —
how can he, in his physical and moral degeneration,
conceive as immoral the highest tendencies that he
has ever known within him, tendencies which, in
reality and for a man in other circumstances, would
be gross appetites ? Would he not abandon himself
to these inferior tendencies, which, to be curbed,
require the most elevated inclinations and com-
plete self-control, because he ignores inclinations
which have proved to be the moral safeguard of
others ?

It may be objected that he knows perfectly well
that he is doing wrong. The proof of it is in his
dissimulation. He hides himself in order that he
may gratify his grosser appetites*. We are too often
deceived in this matter. The being that is inferior
from the moral point of view sometimes flees from
social reprobation, sometimes fears the police, and
knows that he is acting contrary to the prescriptions
of law and morals ; but either he cannot resist his
all-powerful appetites — he is obsessed by them, and
must give way to more and more violent impulses —
or he hates the society that he fears, he mocks at
morals that he cannot understand, and he breaks
the law in which he sees only a formula of oppres-
sion, and not an expression of moral obligation.^

In the first case he must be satisfied by the
struggle, although it cannot issue in an effective

^ This is the case with a young man named N , who was

condemned at the Assizes of Orne for indecent assault, and who
was declared responsible for his acts because he hid himself in order to
give way to his instincts as an inferior being. He was unanimously
considered to be ** unintelligent."

ERRORS OF APPRECIATION. 339

abstention from wrong. This delinquent or criminal
is not voluntarily wicked, but is so against his will.
In the second case he hides himself, and flees before
a force superior to his own ; but he does not see in
that force anything moral; he does not see in his
own ends anything wrong or immoral. If he does
not know what is forbidden, he does not understand
why it is forbidden. He does not therefore do
wrong in order to do wrong; he does it because
what we call wrong is nevertheless to him the best
thing that he can think of.

The man with really evil intentions, the criminal
who refrains from doing good because it is good, who
struggles against social institutions because they are
the creations of public morality, who slays, robs, and
slanders in order to assert the wickedness of which
he is conscious, and which he knowingly fosters
within him, — has such a being as this, a being
abnormal in the highest degree, ever existed ? If,
therefore, we ought only to be responsible for crime
when it has been committed with evil intention, we
never would be responsible. Moralists who have
made of intention the foundation of responsibility
have therefore considered as contrary to good inten-
tion any passion, tendency, desire, or appetite,
other than disinterestedness and respect for the
law of duty.

But how many acts useful to society, useful to the
development of a moral, social, or individual system,
are due to tendencies or even to appetites which have
not been accompanied by any sentiment of respect
or disinterestedness ? Must they therefore be con-
demned? and if it is absurd to consider them as
immoral, where will immorality in intention begin ?

34<5 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

There will probably be only amorality. There will
only be two categories of beings — moral beings and
amoral beings.

164. Insufficient Deliberation.

If, when we wish to attain an end and make
our arrangements to that effect, we realise an end
that could not be foreseen, this is called accident
(the identical definition given by Aristotle), chance,
fatality. In it there is no merit, nor is there crime,
misdemeanour, or fault. And this is much more the
case when the consequences might have been fore-
seen, although they were not. The sportsman who
fires into a public thicket where he must have known
there may be other sportsmen, commits an act of
serious imprudence. His deliberation has been in-
sufficient. He has not summed up certain motives
for not firing into the thicket, and he ought to have
done so for his act to be marked as the result of the
exercise of reasonable will.

If he has done so, and yet the desire of firing
was the stronger ; if the fear of an accident vanished
from his mind or barely arose, his responsibility is
even greater than before. He ought to have fortified
in his mind the motive of abstaining, strengthened
it by fresh motives, and fixed his attention on this
important point.

But if in the first case the fear of accident has not
arisen, and if in the second case it has not persisted,
the psychologist ought to discover why. Perhaps
the sportsman was not intelligent enough to em-
bark upon such subtle considerations. Perhaps
he lacked generous sentiments, or was urged not

INSUFFICIENT DELIBERATION. 34I

to prolong his reflection and deliberation by his
selfishness, or by his levity, or by the simple at-
traction of pleasure. If he lacked intelligence or
feelings, if the impulse to seek a pleasure destroyed
in him all power of reflection, and inhibited every
antagonistic tendency, and if, although it was morally
his duty to deliberate in a certain manner, and
psychologically he was unable to do so because of
his mental debility, what becomes of his responsi-
bility? Is it greater than that of the dog which,
while playing with a little child, upsets it on the
ground and seriously injures it ?

In most cases, when the course of deliberation is
too hastily interrupted, it is at a given moment, and
either the circumstances require an immediate solu-
tion, or perhaps we have reached one of those states
of consciousness which can persist during a certain
time, and which ai*e marked as halting-places in the
course of the mental processus. Why at this moment
does action begin to succeed to speculation, instead
of allowing the latter to continue ? Is it due to a
kind of intellectual lassitude? In certain cases it
might, in fact, be too fatiguing for the mind to
continue to deliberate and to discuss the pros and
cons.

In most cases there is probably an impatience to
issue from a painful state of indecision. Here it is
that the character plays a considerable part ; accord-
ing as one is quick or slow, ardent or temperate, the
painful sentiment which accompanies every de-
liberation leads more or less quickly to a solution
which is very often hasty in the first case, and
sometimes too slow to arrive in the second.

How can a man be considered responsible for

342 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

the temperament and the character which thus
determine his hasty choice?

No doubt a means of making ourselves responsible
for a check midway can be imagined. It is said that,
if we are free, our liberty consists in not allowing
our choice to be fixed until after a certain interval
of deliberation ; thus, Malebranche believed that
owing to liberty, "the impulse that we have to-
wards the universal good is not entirely checked
by a particular good. The mind is urged to go
further. . . . Liberty consists in being able to sus-
pend its judgment and its love, and later think of
other things, and therefore love other forms of
good."i

But Malebranche conceived a limit to this pro-
gress of the mind in the consideration of good. It
was a question of reaching by liberty "that which
contains all good " ; so that liberty and love of good
being synonymous, a strong tendency to satisfy God,
was the exact equivalent of liberty in the system of
Malebranche.

This tendency might be more or less powerful,
and according to its power in each being, Male-
branche conceived those beings as more or less free.
In the same way we have recognised in every man
a strong tendency to systematic action, to conduct
that is quite coherent in itself and well co-ordinated
with that of all its fellows in view of a common end.
According to the power that this tendency has in
him, the moral agent pursues his deliberations, more
or less at length, with the object of only adopting a
decision that is in conformity with his reason. Is
that liberty ? and can one be said to be responsible

^ Recherche de la Verite^ Vol. i., Bk. i., Chap. i.

IRRESPONSIBILITY. 343

because one has weaker or stronger tendencies,
because one has a more or less marked taste for
systematic activity qua an individual and moral
being ? ^ We must, in particular, remark that here is
an essential tendency, one of those that some of the
habits instilled by education or acquired by pro-
longed effort cannot succeed in establishing within us.

We are born more or less reasonable, more or less
adapted to moral activity, just as we are born more
or less able to represent to ourselves colours or
sounds.

And so it is with all those lofty tendencies which
we have recognised as indispensable to morality, the
sum-total of which, as we have seen, forms the moral
character. Are we responsible for the absence within
us of a generous tendency which would serve as an
antagonistic reducer to a low passion ? But then the
question presents itself as to how far we share in the
recognised irresponsibility of the insane.

165. Irresponsibility.

This is one of the most important questions in
morality. For if vice is a natural product like sugar

* Besides, experience shows that prolonged deliberation is sometimes
injurious to rational action. There are people who cannot make up
their minds to take a side, who are ever summoning up new ends and
feelings in contrary directions, so that the conception of the act is
modified while the clearly conscious desires become enfeebled, while
appetites are obscured, and while tendencies assume greater and
greater authority. Thus we reach the state in which we no longer
decide for clear and assignable reasons, for reasons capable of being
formulated into judgments and reasonings of objective value, but simply
by sentiments, by a kind of impulse rising like a huge wave from the
depths of the unconscious.

344 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

and vitriol, if it no longer depends on men to re-
main virtuous and to become vicious any more than
it depends on them to remain healthy-minded or to
become insane; a fortiori, if certain unfortunate
creatures are born criminals just as others are born
mad, or of incurable mental weakness; if misde-
meanour is always or almost always inevitable, what
is the use of morality ? what is the good of a theory
which proposes to us an ideal and rules of systematic
conduct, which we necessarily misunderstand, and
the more inevitably as we are nearer in the psychic
hierarchy to that inferior degree which corresponds
to the maximum of moral insanity ? The intimate
relation between crime and degeneration is, how-
ever, more and more probable. If we distinguish, in
scientific environments, between morbid and ordinary
crime, it is no doubt because of the medico-legal pre-
occupations of most alienists who are compelled, in
the presence of a criminal, to give an opinion as to
his irresponsibility, and in general as to his confine-
ment in a lunatic asylum, or as to his responsibility
with the legal consequences that it involves. They
must therefore arbitrarily establish a certain degree
of intellectual and affective trouble above which the
delinquents are declared responsible, and the princi-
pal difficulty of their task lies exactly in that arbitrary
determination. The motives for impulsive crime are
grasped easily enough, and from the moment they
are grasped we excuse the wrongdoing to that
extent ; but we no longer can grasp the motives of a
crime that is committed in cold blood. There we
see the intervention of will, and admit a much greater
culpability; but the voluntary crime and the im^
pulsive crime are alike determined by a motive. The

IRRESPONSIBILITY, 345

surprising thing is that the act in the first corresponds
to so sUght an interest, whereas in the second,
impulse has given so great an interest to the wrong
that has been done. One is surprised to see that to
procure a transient pleasure for the petty satisfaction
of self-love, or even for less still, a prolonged delibera-
tion may have issued in lavish precaution and skill in
the execution of a cleverly conceived design.

And is not this precisely the sign of the pathologi-
cal character of such an action and such a mental
processus? We are presented with a kind of
dilemma: either the interest was considerable, and
in that case the crime is similar to impulsive crime —
the crime and the criminal are alike pathological ; or
there is practically no interest, and then the action
becomes inexplicable by the determining causes
of normal action, and the crime is pathological.
For how can we admit that except from mental
aberration a reasonable being prefers an act which,
if it were normal, would be opposed by his social
tendencies and the sentiments that are innate in him
and developed by education ? He cannot therefore
experience those sentiments which in healthy-minded
men serve as a counterpoise to tendencies to offensive
action.

Or will it again be objected that the influence of
the will is capable of keeping the attention freely on
the motive which, it would have seemed, ought to
have been the weaker, and which thus becomes the
more powerful ? The hypothesis of a free will
capable of arbitrarily modifying the natural play
which constitutes deliberation is, as I have said, a
metaphysical hypothesis which, like all similar hypo-
theses, has the grave inconvenience of introducing an

346 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

entity, the will, which we can only indicate without
exact definition. Science ought to be content with
facts and laws, and the factors of will are, as we have
seen, choices determined by the nature of the char-
acter and by the tendencies essential to the individual.
If, therefore, a motive that is very feeble in upright
and honourable people is suddenly found in an in-
dividual to have the support of his whole ego, so far
as to reduce to nil the effect of all other motives, and
to orientate in a criminal direction the processus of
deliberation which issues in his so-called free choice,
is not the character of that individual exceptional and
abnormal in the highest degree? Is not this indi-
vidual a being of a fundamentally pathological nature ?
We thus come back to what we said before, namely,
that he lacks tendencies that are indispensable to the
normal being, and that among those essential tend-
encies are not to be found those which he ought to
experience in order to have a normal nature.

166. Possible Modification of the Character.

Can it have tendencies, and, having them, can
they be preserved ? Not having them, can it desire
to acquire them ? These questions require further
examination as to the way in which the man may
lose or acquire essential tendencies, tendencies
dominating his mental evolution, or in all cases
strong enough to direct his conduct. Can it happen
by his own effort alone, and in virtue of his own
choice ? Yes, undoubtedly it can, on condition that
it is by the development or natural transformation of
pre-existing tendencies and fundamental appetites.
But if these elements or rudiments do not pre-exist.

POSSIBLE MODIFICATION OF THE CHARACTER. 347

neither natural effort nor even education can bring
them into being, and the individual we are consider-
ing must then be classed among the morally insane
whose moral debility is congenital.

On the other hand, moral tendencies are so com-
plex that at first they may be affected by a slow
dissolution of the personality, and nothing can
prevent their natural decay or their ultimate dis-
appearance. Here then is a being, apparently
provided with free-will, but to whom deliberation
and will are no longer of any use from the moral
point of view, and on whom only quite simple
impulses make any impression. You call him a
responsible criminal. He is already, although it is
not apparent, nearly related to the " morally insane.'*

The impulsive man may be of a less morbid nature.
Passion, in fact, is inhibitive to tendencies that it
cannot subordinate to itself. It does not destroy
them, and when it has passed away it may leave
dominant the very tendencies that it had over-
shadowed. Its development, up to the paroxysm
that is sometimes so fatal, can only be due to an
excessive compliance in the subject with certain of
these inclinations or certain of his appetites to an
indolence which certain situations and certain circum-
stances encourage. The impulsive criminal would be
able in most cases to escape from the thraldom of
passion by an energetic intervention of his will, that
is to say, by an appeal to all the tendencies of his
character — tendencies which may be normal, and
which in their totality are the constituents of a
normal nature. If he had been accustomed to self-
control he might have avoided his crime. He is
therefore more guilty than the man who finds within

348 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

himself in the depths of his being, however pro-
longed his deliberation may be, no tendencies
capable of opposing an abnormal desire.

It is right to say that voluntary crimes reveal a
fundamentally vicious temperament, while impulsive
crimes are generally committed by occasional mis-
demeanants. But for that very reason degenerates
of every kind, attacked by a more or less characteristic
moral insanity, must be brought into close relation
with the authors of voluntary crimes. As for the
impulsive, they are also morbid, for the impulse
which leads to crime can only be developed and
become omnipotent in a being in whom mental
instability, and, in particular, the instability of
tendencies, is already great enough to constitute a
serious blemish. Therefore criminals, to whatever
class they may belong, must be considered as
diseased ; they either have lacked stability in the
tendencies that are characteristic of a responsible
man, or they have suffered a check in their develop-
ment, or a reversion which has deprived them of
some of those tendencies, while it weakens their
power and causes them to disappear, and to make
way for others which have very soon become morbid.^

167. Imputahility.
But, many moralists will object, if we go back
1 this way from responsibility to responsibility,

167. Imputahility.
^ mo
in this way

^ In fact, it is ascertained that criminals in general present a morbid
exaggeration of tendencies either of nutrition, or reproduction, or the
preservation of the personal existence, or of some of the tendencies
derived from these. That is why M. Lacassagne divided criminals
into three categories— frontal, parietal, and occipital— according to the
supposed localisation of the different tendencies.

IMPUTABILITV. 349

imputability ends by being lost in the waves of an
indefinitely remote past, and of a totality of circum-
stances indefinitely remote. We must therefore
distinguish between moral responsibility and im-
putability. .We have already seen that if the partisans
of liberty reap nothing from ignorance as far as the
point of departure of our character is concerned,
neither can it profit those who prefer to argue from
fatality or universal determinism in order to excuse
their errors.

The legislator and the moral agent have both the
right and the duty of considering the positive datum
of a primitive characteristic which is irreducible, and
which is the origin of the acts accomplished by the
personality. It is to this character, which is at once
the starting-point and the point of departure (the
effect of manifold influences of sociological, psycho-
logical, biological, physico-chemical, and mechanical
influences, but the immediate cause of new series of
phenomena which could not have appeared without
the constitution of a fresh personality), that we
must at first look for the reason of a crime or mis-
demeanour. If it were committed through weakness
of tendencies or character, we might ask the agent
to strengthen what is best in him, what ought to
become predominant; and if he does not do so,
although he has the power, he is responsible for the
crimes which his weakness involves. If the crime
were committed through fundamental wickedness
and through baseness of that character which is a
product of factors, does that mean that he has no
responsibility? No doubt, the individual has none;
but because a morally insane person can no longer
xesist his impulses or cannot actually give to his

350 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.

accurate reasonings the practical consequences which
they imply, does it follow that society could not, by
commencing at a sufficiently early stage a specialised
education, give this patient the means of avoiding
crime, develop in him healthier sentimei^Jts, and give
to his sensibility and to his practical judgment an
impulse of another kind ?

1 68. Social Action.

It is objected, that from their earliest years many
of the morally insane have been incurably unrespon-
sive to educative action. But is not this because
the education they have received has not been in
the least suitable to their temperament and their
character ? And is it not also because the education
received by criminals who are not considered insane
has been insufficient, incomplete, ill directed, and too
early abandoned, that they have committed a crime
which perhaps their temperament, left to its free
development, has rendered inevitable?^

What the individual is powerless to determine or
to check in himself, the community may create or
prevent by the means at its disposal, so powerful is
their action on the individual mind. Society no
doubt is also subject to a determinism; but we can
clearly see whence, in decadent communities, in a
process of dissolution or morbid evolution, comes
the stimulus or the check that these communities no
longer find in themselves. In fact there are always,

^ It is sufficient here to point out the complete absence, at any rate
in France, of asylums for the treatment of criminals of limited re-
sponsibility, in order to show how remote we are from the time when
an appropriate education will be given to degenerates who are pre-
disposed to priminal action.

SOCIAL ACTION. 351

side by side with communities of a given tempera-
ment, communities of a different spirit whose quite
different future influences the future of neighbouring
communities. A nation or a race exercises its happy
or unhappy influence on another nation or on another
race, and there is an incessant overlapping of actions
and reactions between the different societies in the
world; and this causes social determinism to differ in
other respects from the inevitableness which involves
an irremediable collective decadence.

Hence for individuals there are remedies and pre-
ventives of social origin, just as there are remedies
and preventives for families, cities, and nations in
the wider communities of which these elementary
communities form a part. (For this subject vide my
treatise on the social causes of insanity, a criticism of
too narrow a conception of sociological degeneration.)
Now if there are incurable criminals, there is
no social incurability. Humanity can amend itself
indefinitely by destroying in its midst all the social
causes of mental insanity, of moral insanity, of
psychological debility, and of instability or morbid
stability of the mind. No doubt a collectivity cannot
move more rapidly than the present state of its
civilisation permits. The moralising power that it
may exercise over itself is certainly limited; but it
can make no mistake when there is ah increase in-
stead of a progressive decrease of criminality and
immorality. When there is an increase in the
number and the importance of misdemeanours and
crimes, we may fearlessly assert the very wide
responsibility of society with regard to individual
faults.

The question is how to find out what remedies

352 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

and preventives of social origin will have an effect
on criminals or delinquents, — if not on all, at least
on most of them, and certainly on a special category
of social beings.

II.
Sanction and Moral Education.

169. The Role and Nature of Sanction.

Since men come to a decision under the influence
of sentiments much more than of the conclusions
of pure reason, and since there must always be
with the directing idea a rather strong tendency to
make the idea effectively directing, to such a point
that the keenest intelligence can do nothing for the
morality of an agent when his sentiments are bad
and irremediably low, — since this is so, it is quite fair
to appeal to means drawn from the psychology of
the sentiments to give to the civil law a power over
the mind, a power which it does not hold from the
simple enunciation of the prescription.

Thus all legislatures have sanctioned rules of con-
duct which they promulgate by penal dispositions
involving pain to the delinquent in the case of non-
observation of the law. The fear of pain has seemed
from all time to be the most efficacious motive that
it is possible to awaken in the mind of man with a
view to the accomplishment of his social duties.

Ipso facto the idea of sanction has been intimately
associated with that of pain or its contrary — reward.
However, it is possible to arouse other motives
than the desire of reward or the fear of punishment.

THE r6le and nature OF SANCTION. 353

According to circumstances we may appeal to the
aesthetic, family, or civic sentiments, to sympathetic
emotions, and to generous tendencies. The law may
present itself together with considerations capable of
stirring the heart and of impressing that law pro-
foundly on the mind. It may be reinforced in its
authority by the respect that is inspired by its very
origin; instead of being a simple prescription, often
apparently arbitrary, it may be presented as the very
consequence of certain effective desires.

In fact, laws are generally respected because of the
fear inspired by the thought of reprisals, exercised
by the chief or the caste which issued the rules of
common conduct. Men have governed men as they
govern animals, much more by force than by per-
suasion. Besides, pain has another origin than the
desire of sanctioning a law; punishment and crime
existed before written law and judicial forms. The
breaking of traditions, acts opposed to prejudices,
customs, and to the tendencies of primitive people,
all involved violent reactions of the multitude
against the individual. Death frequently followed
the slightest breach of the tacit prescriptions of a
people or of a caste.

The rigour of penal reactions seems to us to de-
crease in the course of civilisation. Stoning to death
has disappeared. Lynching tends to disappear, and,
among all civilised races, is no longer considered as
anything but collective crime. But the State, sub-
stituting itself for the impulsive, blind, and unjust
mob, prone to every kind of excess, has given to
pain the character of impulsive reaction which it
has joined to that of legal sanction; hence has
followed a constant confusion in the conception of

23

354 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

the part that pain should play. Punishment has
been considered as a means of reparation, as a
necessary consequence of crime, just as reward
would be considered the necessary consequence of
merit.

Kant would attribute all the energy of this belief
in the necessity of reward or punishment to the
consequcfice of good or evil action. He does not think
that the fear of punishment or the hope of reward is
a motive to virtuous action ; but he considers almost
as an a priori synthetic proposition the assertion that
vice should be punished and virtue rewarded.

No opinion could be more arbitrary. Nowhere
perhaps in morality is more clearly to be seen the
influence of long tradition on the concepts of prac-
tical reason. Because an impulsive reaction, cruel
or kind, favourable or unfavourable, has always
followed in partially civilised humanity the action
that is considered criminal, or the action considered
good (that is to say, contrary to, or in conformity
with, the beliefs and prejudices of the multitude), we
therefore believe in the rational necessity of such
a sequence of facts, and claim to make of God the
fittest means to realise this so-called supreme end:
the correspondence of happiness and virtue, of suffer-
ing and vice.

M. Paul Janet has tried to justify this conception
by basing it on the idea of distributive justice. From
the moment that good and evil may be apportioned
to man, it is right that they should be distributed
proportionately to the merits and according to the
moral value of each. But there is a preliminary
question: is there, outside the good which the
aptitude of each to secure it for himself submits

THE CONSEQUENCE OF MORAL ACTION. 355

to an equitable redivision, other goods which are
independent of technical aptitudes, as far as their
acquisition is concerned ? If so — if, for example, there
were reason for admitting the existence after death
of a life in which joy would be granted in a measure
wide, or average, or slight, we conceive that distri-
butive justice requires the redivision of this good
according to moral merit. But in our present ex-
istence we see that happiness, if it is not always
acquired by moral virtue, is in general obtained by
those who are skilful in procuring their own advan-
tage. It is not true that the good are always un-
happy, and especially is it not true that moral value
is doomed never to procure real happiness by its own
efforts on earth.

170. Happiness the Natural Consequence oj Moral
Action.

No doubt we do not content ourselves with the
satisfaction procured by duty accomplished. The
Stoics were wrong in believing that virtue was its
own reward, and in considering all material good, all
other joys than purely moral joys, as indifferent.
Happiness, from wherever it may spring, is to be
esteemed and to be desired, provided it is not in-
jurious to individual or social perfection. The moral
being may lawfully claim his share of pleasure, his
share of material well-being, and of intellectual,
aesthetic, and social satisfaction.

Why then does he not sometimes obtain it ? Is it
not because, in spite of his excellent intentions, he
does not succeed in playing the part which might
procure for him the satisfactions which he is entitled

356 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

to desire ? We are wrong if we separate skill from
integrity. It will be sufficient to distinguish between
those who are skilful without being honourable, and
those who are both honourable and skilful, that is to
say, those who can find the means best fitted for the
realisation of their moral ends, who discover imme-
diately how inferior is integrity without skill, although
that is preferable to skill without morality.

' To be a moral being we need not be an innocent
being, a dupe or a victim. All we ask is to be a
being of our own time and environment, no doubt so
as to be a factor of progress for one's environment,
but also so that we may adapt ourselves to the con-
ditions of existence in which we are placed. If a
virtuous man living a solitary life is ignorant of a
series of joys which are well known to the wicked, he
can only blame himself for his inferiority from the
point of view of happiness. If, instead of hoping for
reward in a future life in return for the privations
which he endures in his present existence, he would
force himself all the more to become a social being,
useful to his fellows, in solidarity with his fellow-
citizens, he would be in solidarity with them in
pleasure as well as in pain ; and he would very soon
perceive that if in the present social system it fre-
quently happens that the ungodly triumph and that
the good suffer, the fault often lies with the good
who do not know how to work on behalf of collective
virtue.

When one is too engrossed to acquire private
virtues, which can only have value in so far as they
are a condition of public virtues ; when we deliberately
forget our fellows and only think of our own perfec-
tion, we are punished by the doom of the ages — the

THE CONSEQUENCE OF MORAL ACTION. 357

unhappiness of the good amid the happiness of the
wicked.

It is then because the good are not good enough
that they are unhappy. It is because their goodness
is too passive, their virtue not sufficiently active, that
they see happiness flee from them. They have not
sufficiently deserved it.

All the efforts of social beings ought to tend to the
realisation of a social order from which injustice is
progressively eliminated, in which the harmful effects
of wickedness are more or less attenuated, in which
the scale of moral values, which is in addition the
scale of social values when it is a question of persons,
corresponds exactly to the scale of good and pleasure.

What is there more natural than to see health
procured by temperance, regularity of employment
and well-being procured by professional skill, esteem
and honours resulting from persevering integrity, and
from the affection and the devotion of one's fellows
— which are the reward of services rendered to the
common cause, and therefore to individual causes.
What is it, then, which prevents the moral man from
being happy? Accidents, social disturbance, physi-
cal and moral contagion — in short, the effects of
fortuitous occurrences due to the complexity of social
relations and the effects of universal solidarity. But
man becomes more and more the master of nature
and eliminates the disastrous consequences of that
chance of which the ancients made a God, because it
was more dreaded by them than by us ; and more
and more also does moral solidarity, the voluntary
consensus of reasonable beings, replace the primitive
solidarity, which was certainly more dangerous than
productive of moral results.

358 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

The optimism to which we may abandon ourselves
has nothing in common with theological or meta-
physical optimism; it is not based on subjective
beliefs or on an arbitrary conception of the world.
Facts are its foundation — the progress of science
and the progress of intelligent solidarity. We may
therefore hope that by incessant effort (for moral
optimism far from enervating and weakening, far
from giving confidence to the idle who might trust
in an inevitable evolution, excites the energies and
stimulates to action), by a persistent desire to realise a
social system which becomes more and more unified,
we shall eventually bring into agreement both nature
and morality, and secure happiness for the good.

But, once more, the acquisition of happiness will
be the natural consequence of the skill exhibited, of
the ability with which the moral being will reach his
ends. It will not therefore be a sanction in the sense
in which sanction was understood by classical philo-
sophy. It will be rather what is sometimes under-
stood by ** natural sanction." It is far better simply
to say that this will be a natural result of increasing
morality.

In the same way the suffering which will result to
the unskilful and the dishonest, from the privation of
the good and the pleasure that a more systematic
conduct would have certainly secured for them, will
not be a sanction or a punishment, but the simple
result of their immorality in the midst of increasing
morality.

171. Merit.

The ideas of merit and demerit have only a
relation to the natural consequences of good or evil

MERIT. 359

action in so far as we can imagine a social state
different from that in which the agent resides, a social
state ensuring results the best adapted to the import-
ance of the cause. We may be convinced that man
will always imagine a social organisation superior to
that which he enjoys. The idea of the Elysian
Fields and of Paradise, as ancient perhaps as man
himself, is far from disappearing from the human
consciousness. At most it may be secularised, and
become the idea of a physical and social environ-
ment, more in conformity to the moral ideal. So
that if we no longer conceive the man of high moral
value as deserving greater pleasure in heaven, he will
be conceived as deserving it in a better terrestrial
world. As for the wicked, he will be considered less
and less worthy to live in this better world ; and just
as in our days the Catholic generally expels him from
heaven and plunges him into hell, so, perhaps, lay
opinion will claim to expel him from the society of
the future. But these are only the very natural con-
sequences of the conception of an ideal of common
life. To deserve to be admitted into the Republic
of Plato, or into the city of God or into a future
humanity, there to enjoy the pleasure of the wise and
the happiness of the virtuous being, is the desire of
the moral being who works for the realisation of this
ideal of collective existence. Not to deserve it is the
characteristic of the wicked, who does not trouble
his head about such a realisation.

Does not this go far to realise the classical theory,
according to which to every moral act must be added
a reward, and to every immoral act a punishment ?
according to which the good deserves to be rewarded
beyond the natural consequences of his good action,

360 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

and the wicked deserves to suffer beyond the suffering
that his misdoing may naturally cause to him ?

172. The Immorality of Punishment.

Is it not even immoral and inhuman to assert that
the sum of suffering which weighs upon humanity
must be increased by punishments ? How can the
death of a criminal and the tortures inflicted upon
him be moral ? Is it not a relic of barbarism to
conceive of the pain of the delinquent as well
deserved ? And besides, what is this multitude which
crowds around the foot of the scaffold and claps its
hands, and laughs, and sings when the knife falls ?
Is it not the ignoble mob issuing from the low
quarters of our great towns, bearing all the stigmata
of degeneration, and exhibiting a well-marked rever-
sion to the most brutal ancestral type, in our
civilised eyes the most monstrous type of all ?
Should we not therefore be ashamed of ourselves
when the old leaven of animal cruelty gives rise in
us to thoughts and sentiments of reprisal with
respect to the criminal, and when our heart is
not touched by the sufferings inflicted upon the
delinquent ?

To make him suffer who has made others suffer,
to be cruel towards the man who has been cruel,
is to multiply the wrong instead of healing the
wound. It is adding to the individual fault a social
fault, and putting the criminal in the position of a
man on whom vile vengeance is taken.^ Let the man
who has done the wrong help to repair it. Let him
make good the public and private mischief that he

' Cf. A. France, Les Idles dej. Coignard,

UTILITARIAN ROLE OF PUNISHMENT. 361

has caused. That is the principle of contractual
justice which tends to prevail in our days, because
obligations tend to become more and more exact
now that they are stipulated in contracts. There
always are cases in which the public injury caused by
a criminal cannot be estimated. Violation of the
law is much more pernicious because it tends to the
destruction of the social edifice, than because it in-
volves injury that may be valued. Therefore we
must endeavour above all to prevent the tendency to
violate the law and the moral precept from being
generalised, for this would render social life im-
possible.

173. Utilitarian Role of Punishment,

Perhaps then punishment may be really a sanction,
that is to say, the means of reinforcing the influence
of the law on the mind of him who deliberates,
chooses, and acts. By arousing in the mind the
fear of punishment we create a new motive to action
or inhibition ; but this sanction, which is purely
utilitarian, is the last means to which society can
have recourse to influence or restrain the individual.
It is the complement of an insufficient education or
an education which has not brought forth all its
fruit.

It is therefore important that punishment should
be inflicted only if its influence will be effective on
the mind of the subject who deliberates, and that
only that kind of punishment should be inflicted
which will exercise an effective influence on a given
mind.

If this be done the punishment of the insane will
cease, because they are incapable of reflection ; and so

362 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

with idiots, who are imbeciles incapable of action
with a motive, not so much because they are not
responsible or because fault is not imputable to
them, but because no sanction has any influence on
them.

The child who has committed a fault through
bewilderment, the young man, the adult, the old
man, who have let themselves be dragged into
crime through impulse, and have thereby shown that
they lack an inner restraint and sufficient power of
self-control, profit by the punishment that is inflicted
upon them. As for the morally insane, who commit
voluntary crimes, who accomplish the most abomin-
able acts with the greatest sang froid — and that, as
we have seen, from lack of lofty sentiments, from a
pathological absence of tendencies to social life — it
may sometimes be useful, and even absolutely neces-
sary, that the civil or moral law should appear to
them to be sanctioned, and that its violation should
be conceived of by them as eminently disastrous.

How many people are there in the most civilised
society without fear of police or prison, and who,
because they lack generous tendencies and noble
sentiments, let themselves drift into excess, im-
morality, misdemeanour, and crime ? They are
like the morally insane in the sense that they
lack certain inclinations characteristic of the moral
being, although they differ from the delinquent or
criminal lunatic in the sense that their impulses or
obsessions do not so inevitably issue in the doing of
wrong. In number they are legion, and that is why
it seems that fear, the only motive capable of exer-
cising an effective influence on their voluntary-
decisions, must be inspired, in most human beings

UTILITARIAN ROLE OF PUNISHMENT. 363

by the establishment of punishments sanctioning
the laws.

Does this imply that a haunting dread is the sole
instrument by which respect for the laws and the
doing of one's duty is wholly and always to be
impressed on humanity ? Does it mean that the fear
of the police, or that the fear of the Lord, will be
the last word of the wisdom of multitudes ?

If the former, we must teach the people that the
most terrible punishments in this world and the next
await the delinquent, or we must at any rate attach
to virtue so many rewards and to vice such punish-
ment that appetite and fear will become the most
powerful motives to human actions. This means, a
real " morality of slaves " ; it means that fear must
dominate man.

But is fear a normal sentiment ? Is it not one
of those pathological sentiments which disturb the
intellect and paralyse action. If we undertake to
establish a morality having as its end the normal
functioning of the psycho-sociological being we ought
only to provisionally admit an abnormal mental state.

Now the effects of dread are known. Those of fear
are none the less known. It is sufficient to see the
habitual attitude and the state of heart and mind to
which young people are brought who are subject to
a terrible discipline, to be under no illusion as to the
value of a morality that is based on dread. The
man who fears is either a being resigned to apathy,
or a sly creature, a secret rebel, who only waits for
a favourable opportunity to escape the obligations
imposed upon him by a master whom he hates. As
M. Richard^ has said, the State progresses by

1 Rev. PhiLf 1899, t. ii., pp. 475 ei seq.

364 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

economising constraint and by soliciting the obedi-
ence of the individual to the requirements of col-
lective life, appealing to other motives than fear.
There is a general tendency to avoid imprisoning
children capable of improvement. In England we
send them to Reformatory Schools, in France to
Houses of Correction, which are unfortunately too
badly organised to give happy results. The law of
reprieve is inspired by a wise mistrust of the fatal
consequences of imprisonment and by a belief, which
has been proved justified, in the happy effects of a
severe warning. Let the prison of the near future be
transformed into an asylum for the moral health.
We have seen that responsibility for crime is made
incumbent on a nature that has been given to the
delinquent, on a character which can only be
reformed by the very person who acted, and can
only act, according to his own character; thus the
criminal, the delinquent, and the immoral being are
defective beings.

Society should defend itself against their attacks
without anger, and protect itself as it would against
the possible wrong-doing of a dog, a horse, or any of
our "inferior brethren." To prevent the repetition
of crimes and misdemeanours which have been com-
mitted in spite of preventive measures, we must first
of all prevent the evil-doer from continuing to set a
bad example — ^just as we should prevent an epileptic
from falling too frequently into his crises in the
presence of hysterical subjects, who would be only
too ready to imitate him. We must therefore take
pains with the delinquent and not restore him to
liberty until he is cured, until he has lessened the
violence of his passions or the power of his disastrous

UTILITARIAN r6lE OF PUNISHMENT. 365

tendencies, until he has really. grown wiser and has
not been brought, as happens too often, to a state of
mere hypocrisy by ill treatment and by fear. Let us
not forget that all minds are not accessible to fear.
In the first place, there are degenerates whom no
punishment can terrify, and who experience a kind of
pleasure in bearing the chastisement and the humili-
ation which would cause in others bitter pangs.
There are also strong men, courageous men, whom
fear and suffering cannot check, and to whom pun-
ishment cannot constitute a sanction qualified to re-
inforce the power of the law. In such people quite
different sentiments must be evoked if we wish to
determine them to moral conduct. To some the
awakening of an appetite, to others conformity of
action to a strong tendency, will be sufficiently
powerful a feeling or end to determine the suit-
able choice. Educators know it well. Each child
must be attacked on his "sensitive side" to bring
him to what we desire. Adults are for the most part
but great children. " Trahit sua quemque voluptas "
was said by one who did not realise perhaps the
distinction that should be drawn from the practical
point of view between the pleasure which is not
always proposed as an end, and the desire which is
always a motive, even when it is not the desire of
enjoyment, even when its satisfaction involves suffer-
ing. The real meaning of the aphorism is this — each
of us is led by his own inclinations. We must there-
fore recognise the inclinations characteristic of each
of those whose conduct we desire to direct, in order
to ascertain what are the inclinations whose develop-
ment may be useful to the development of morality,
and to endeavour to give to the moral prescription

366 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

the support which would be absent if those inclina-
tions were, so to speak, only "skin deep." Far
from skimming over the surface of the consciousness,
moral law should penetrate it ; and there is no other
means of penetrating a mind than the natural path
traced out by the tendencies, the inclinations, and
the appetites. Punishment and reward are means of
superficial action which can only disturb the con-
sciousness by the impetus of the shock. It is not
by them that prohibitions or prescriptions are
insinuated into the mind. On the contrary, habit
dulls the sensibility to those sanctions because they
are mainly external.

M. Enrico Ferri^ rightly says that "the experi-
ence of daily life in the family, in the school, and in
the social group, as well as the history of social life,
show that to render less pernicious the outburst of
the passions, it is far better to take them in flank and
at their origin than to attack them in front. To
preserve his wife's fidelity the astute husband counts
on many other considerations than the regulations of
the penal code against adultery. . . . Inattention
and tendencies to destruction in the child are much
better restrained by well-adapted games than by a
punishment which has failed to repress them. . . .
That is why experience shows in the judicial-criminal
domain that punishments fail completely in the end,
which is entirely one of social defence, so that we
must have recourse to other means of satisfying the
requirements of social order. Hence what I have
called * penal substitutes' (sostitutivi penali).'' The
conception of "substitutes" for punishment is
summed up as follows: The legislature, after

^ Socwlogia criminaley pp. 395 et seq.

MORAL SUGGESTION. 367

having examined the varied aspects and manifesta-
tions of the individual and social activity, after
having discovered the origin, the conditions, and the
consequences of criminal facts, after learning the
psychological and sociological laws which, in a great
part at any rate, give the reason of tjiem, ought to
endeavour to exercise a felicitous influence on the
processus of criminality. For that purpose the social
organism should receive such an orientation that
human activity instead of being uselessly threatened
with repression may be guided in a continuous and
indirect manner towards non-criminal objects, by
offering the freest possible course to individual
energies and ends, but avoiding as much as possible
temptations and opportunities for crime.

174. Moral Suggestion.

With respect to most people we must act as with
respect to delinquents; and to prevent the former
from engaging in vice we must use the processes
that are employed to prevent the latter from falling
back into crime. As we give up the idea of inspiring
them with the fear of punishment, we must accept
the obligation of giving them a moral education.

Now we must be sure that the moralising action
is exercised not by speech, command, or prohibition,
but by suggestion which varies with the individual,
and differs in its nature according to the character
appropriate to each case and corresponding to
particular tendencies. If a child or a man has more
marked aesthetic than scientific tendencies, do not
idly preach to him the love of science which would
lead another man by the cult of the true to very

368 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

lofty social and moral sentiments. Let us show
him the neighbouring road which passes from the
beautiful to the good; let us excite his aesthetic
sentiments until he desires to see beauty in conduct,
and harmony both in his acts and in the totality
formed by his acts and those of his fellows.
Let each character retain its peculiar aspect, and
for that purpose preserve its characteristic tendencies.
It will none the less be normal and moral; for
Virtue may be attained by many ways as long as
these tendencies do not exclude certain sentiments
which are indispensable to morality.

Hence, to penetrate into the heart of a man, let us
study his character and adapt our method of acting
to his requirements. Let us understand him well in
order that in his turn he may enjoy with us a unity
of ideas and sentiments. If we wish to educate a
weak-minded person, the best thing is first to leave
him in the company of good comrades, who, without
trying to attract him by benefits or kindnesses, little
by little determine in him sympathies and antipathies.
He attaches himself to the most sympathetic, follows
him, imitates him, is devoted to him, and obeys him
just as a hypnotised person is dominated by his
magnetiser. Thus is exercised moral suggestion;
and it is the more powerful in proportion as the
sympathy inspired in the patient by his companion
is great.

Imitation springs from sympathy, or rather blends
with it; for sympathy results from spontaneous
imitation, which is rendered easy by the affinities
of two characters. The two phenomena react on
and mutually strengthen each other. By spontaneous
imitation one is subjected to the thraldom of custom,

MORAL SUGGESTION. 369

of fashion, and manners. Through it we acquire
methods of thinking, feeling, and acting, which are
strange or foreign in their origin, and which are
assimilated the more easily according as they meet
with fewer antagonisms in the mind that receives
them. - Now the power of antagonistic sentiments
may be reduced beforehand by slow pressure exer-
cised by the skilful teacher, so that the path is made
clear for new tendencies.

Young people whose sentiments are not yet fixed
and are not yet completely developed are particularly
apt to receive moral suggestions both negative and
positive, exercised in the direction of restraint or
in that of the exaltation of certain sentiments.
That is why people anxious about their moral future
have always confided the education of youth to those
who have the same ideal as the great majority of the
citizens in the midst of whom they fill the important
part of suggesters. The wisest of the Greeks and
Romans kept their children as far as possible from
educators like the Sophists and the Academicians,
skilful as they were to capture the intellect, but
far too hostile to the virtues which Greece and
Rome had learned to esteem. Modern races should
show the same care to preserve their young people
from morbid suggestions, which are fatal to social
harmony and to the realisation of a collective ideal.

In fact, the happy choice of the educators of youth
is a condition of moral safety to the country; the
future depends upon it; and not only the future of
those who have been subject to moral or immoral
suggestion, not only the future of their whole genera-
tion, but also the future of successive generations,
which will grow up in a social environment in which

24

370 SANCTION AND MORAL EDUCATION.

certain sentiments indispensable to morality will be
developed, or will be stifled as soon as they appear.
For the whole of the people act on each individual
as a skilful teacher. In this totality each being finds
a more or less considerable number of citizens with
whom he is in sympathy, whom he follows, imitates,
and copies, and whose manners and maxims he fully
adopts. This group of models must not form a sect
which is opposed to the neighbouring sect of different
manners. If education is one, if some fundamental
principles remain common in spite of the inevitable
divergences which are due to diversity of tempera-
ment, the moral unity is assured. Moral anarchy, on
the contrary, arises from antagonistic morbid sugges-
tions, from radically opposed methods of education.

It is only therefore when a people makes an effort to
give to its youth as far as possible the same education
of the sentiments, and the same " moral suggestion,"
that it may expect to see a diminution in the number
and the importance of crimes and faults committed
in its midst by individuals or communities.

The real sanction of the laws is in the morals which
make their observation easy and sure. To give to
the moral law and to moral precepts their full
authority, they must penetrate manners. It is for
moralists, for all those who believe they are in posses-
sion of the best rules of conduct, to force themselves,
not by crying in the wilderness, but by acting on
their environment, to secure the appearance in their
country, and in humanity generally, of well co-
ordinated collective tendencies, of social causes of
morality, capable of opposing the social causes of
madness and misconduct.

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in "Morale sociale." Paris, Alcan, 1899.
Darlu. — La morale chrdtienne et la conscience contemporaine,

** Revue de metaph. et de morale," 1900, p. 257.
Delbet. — La morale positive. {Ibid,)
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mOtaph. et de mor.," March 1900.
DUGAS. — L'amitie antique. Paris, Alcan, 1896.
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philosophique," 1897, t. xliv.
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Paris, Schleicher, 1901.
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1893.
DURKHEIM.— L'AnnOe sociologique, 1899-1900.
ESPINAS. — Les SociOtes animates. Paris, Alcan, 1878.
Ferri (E.). — Sociologia criminale. . Turin, Bocca, 4th ed.,

1900 (also an abridged English edition).
FouiLLl&E. — Critique des syst^mes de morale contemporains.

Paris, Alcan, 3rd ed., 1893.
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1900.
Fragapane.— Objetto e limiti della filosofia del diritto. Rome,

Loescher, 1900.
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Loescher, 1896.
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grandes villes et des moyens de les rendre meilleures.

Paris, 1840.
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1898.
Grasset (Dr.). — La superiority intellectuelle et la nevrose.

Montpellier, Coulet, 1900.
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L'irrOligion de I'avenir. Paris, Alcan, 1896.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 373

James (W.). — Principles of Psychology. Cf. Marillier, La

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Janet (Paul).— La Morale. Paris, Delagrave, 5th ed., 1898.
Kant. — Critique of Practical Reason.
KOVALEVSKY.— La Morale de Tolstoi, in "Morale Sociale."

Paris, Alcan, 1899.
Lalande. — La dissolution oppos^e k revolution. Paris, Alcan,

1899.
Laveleye (de). — De la propriete et de ses formes primitives.

2nd ed., Alcan, 1897.
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1900 (4th ed.).
Lombroso. — L'Uomo Delinquente. French and German trans.

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374 BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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Paulhan. — UActivitd mentale et les Elements de I'esprit.

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" Revue blanche," 1900.)

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Berlin, Reimer, 1899.

INDEX.

Aboulia, §33, 178

Accident, criminal by, § 75

Action : —moral, § 28, pp. 53 et
seq,; voluntar)% do.; first stage
of, 61, 62; instinctive, 97; im-
moral, V. ; social, in dealing
with criminals, 350

Acts : — voluntary, 63 ; moral,
place of joy in, § 70 ; immoral,
V. ; why called vicious, 153

Adams {^xodks)i 210; (Maurice),
236«.

-Esthetics, § 59, § 69

Agent, 61, §47,93

Agriculture (and property), 224

Alcoholism, § 86

Althusiusy 276, 281

Altruism, §61, 134, 144, 233, 235,
270

Ambtl Anakj 196, 199

Amor Dei intellectualis^ 117 et
seq.

Andaman Islanders, 169;/.

Animal societies, 128; love in, 129

Animals, man and, 327

Anomia, and crime, 187

Antagonistic reductives, 125, 133,
140, 177

Antecedent, and cause, 90

Apaches, 199, 201

Appreciation, errors of, 337

Aptitudes, 273

Aquinas^ St, Thomas^ 275

Aristocracy, § 122 ; of Plato, 42

Aristotle, 3, 4, 30, §23, 53, 70,
114, 120, 138, 191, 205, 251,

327
Arts and ethics, §15; of human
conduct, 26 et seq,\ aim of, 123

Asceticism, 120

Assaults, indecent, 165, 174, 338
Association, §30, 219
Attention, §30; multilinear, 69;
voluntary, 139 ; pathology of,

175
Austin, 257;/., 259«., 26o«.,

267;/., 274/1., 275«., 276;/.
Authority, 205

Bachofen, 145, 196

Bain, 98«

Baldwin, 326

Ballion, 204

Bancroft, 200

Beautiful, cult of, § 69

Bedouins, 201

Belief, 11

Belot, 8

Bent ham, 103

Bergsen, d'^^, 85«.

Bernard (Claude), 82, 83

Birds, monogamic, 196

Blackmail, 167

Bodin, 275

Bon {/e), 158

Bona/d {de), 278

Boncour, 219, 221, 222n,, 287

Botocodos, 201

BotigU, 207, 209

Bourret (Cardinal), 9

BoutrouXt i6n.

Brentano, 219

Brunschvicg, 148, I50«.

Burchardt, 200

Burke, 277

Capital, § 107, 227
Cartesianism, ^\n.

376

INDEX.

Caste, 205

Cause (and antecedent), 90

Centralisation, pp. 284 et seq,

Chabot^ 146

Chamberlain^ 126//., 134/f., 140^.,

Character, origin of, §44; pos-
sible modification of, 346

Charity, 266

Children, organising power, 134 ;
primitive condition of, 200;
work of, 308 ; duties towards,
321 ; their duties, 324

Choice, 54 ; of the best, 70 ; in-
telligible, 93

Christianity, 3 ; sociological ex-
planation of its spread, 9, 208

Chrysippus^ 127

Clan, and property, 224

Classes (the), 205

Cleanthes^ 18, 120, 123

Clergy, hostility to evolutionism, 7

Collective sentiments, § 108, 228

Collins, 2^2n., 233«.

Comenius, 320

Communism, 225

Competition, 292

ComU^ 116, 191, 194, 232

Conception, 54, § 29, 143

Conduct, rational, § 19, 35 ; sys-
tematic, 36, 153; instinctive,
54; reprehensible, 155

Conflict, necessary, § 119

Conscience, 33, § 45 ; voice of.

Conscious processes, § 35
Consciousness, moral, § 17 ; of the

good, 33
Constraint, 264
Contract, § 100
Co-education, 320
Co-operation, 306
Corporations, suppression of

ancient, 227
Corvee, and the State, 297
Cosmology, 7
CostCy 209, 210, 216, 285
Cotilanges (Fustel de), 207
CratyluSj li$n.
Crime, § 72 ; due to unsatisfied

needs, 172

Criminal, §73; classes of, §74,

§ 84 ; insane, § 76.
Criminologists, 156 et seq»
Crisis, the moral, i
Criticism, spirit of, i ; right of,

13 ; al>stention from, 246
CulUre, 175//.

Culture, and inheritance, 273^.
Customs, ancient, preserved, 156

DaHemagne, 172

Dareste, 304

Dargun, 21 5«.

Darlu, 22, 241

Darwin, 15, 236

Dawson, 198

Degenerates, intelligent, § 78

Degeneration, 185

Delbos, 34«.

Deliberation, 54, §34, 67, 143,

340
Descartes, 23
Desire, § 54
Despotism, § 120
Determinism, 72 ^/j^^., §43, 185

et seq. ; of immoral actions, V. ,

pp. 152 et seq.
Devotion, 122, § 128, 262
D'Hulst, 9
Dieyeries, 197
Diogenes Laertius, 1 01, 121
Disaggregation, mental, 177
Disintegration, social, 3
Dissociation, 57
Disturbance, social, § 86
Divorce, 321

Dugas, 14, 44, 45. I37«-, 327
Dutkheim, 8, 16, 17, 18, 74,

I09«., iio«., 187, 195, 204,

206, 218, 231, 287
Duty, 14, 15, 26 et seq,, 36, 44,

75, 76, 266, 282

Economic, life, 193 ; primitive
state, § loi ; evolution, § 102,
294 ; facts, order of, 294

Economy, political, and morality,
296

Edgeworth, 47«.

Education, duty of State, § 140;
and sanction, 352

INDEX.

377

Ego, origin of, 82, 93

Egoism, § 55, 128

Egyptians, 207

Ellis (Havelock), ii6w., 156W.,
i62»., i68«., i7i»., i79».,
i8i»., 240».

Emotion, shocks, 136

Encyclopadia Britannica^ 4I«.|
275«.

Endogamy, 192, 195, 197

Enthusiasm, close of era of, 10

Environment, 186

Epicureanism, 4, 5, loi

Epicurus^ 84, 95, 10 1, 102, 103,
120, 150, 327

Equality, § 96

Eroticism, 116

Espinasy 128, 203

Ethics, and metaphysics, 5; and
religion, §5; and science, 11,
§10; and arts, § 15; indepen-
dent, §7; science of, 13; Kan-
tian, §9; technical character
of, § 12; social, § 16; compared
to mathematics, 13; pure and
applied, 40 ; of mind and nature,
23 ; individual and social. III.

Ethical, religion, 10; research,
40,48

Evolution, hostility of clergy to,
7 ; and Spencer, 46 ; obedience
to law of duty, 47 ; of law and
morals, 194; family, §89; politi-
cal, § 99 ; economic, § 102 ; of
social sentiments, 233 ; socio-
logical, § 112; social, 254; in-
dividual, 262 ; conscious, 265

Exaggeration, § 82, 177

Exercise, §71

Exhibitionist mania, 174

Exogamy, 192, 195, 197

Expansion, force of vital, pp. 126
et seq.

Family, 74; dissolution, § 92;

future of, § 93
Fanaticism, 228
Fault, 152 et seq.
Fear, 138; a normal sentiment?

363
Fecundity, 128

FM, 14OM., 16% ft,

Ferrerot 315

Ferrty 157, 158, 159, 1 60, 366

FerruSy 157

Firmness, 135, §66

FouilUe, 6, 9, io«., I30«., 23611. ,

248, 249;;., 282
Fragapaney 212
France (A.), 360
Eraser y 198
Fraternity, 326
Freedom, 208
FrJgier, 157, 159
Friendship, 326

Gaillofty 177, 179

Gall, 157

Galtotiy 155

Games, 128

Garafolo, 158

Generosity, § 63, 127, 265

Gide, 244

Gobloty 186

Good, the, 70; the idea of, and

the tendency to, § 38 ; and the

beautiful, § 69
Government, 208, § 97, 274
Grassier y i^on,
Greece, 3
Gregory VII., 275
Grosse, 197, 215
GrotiuSy 276, 281
Guiberty 9
Guyauy 25«., 31, 73»., 77«.,

\o\n,y 104/^., 124, 124/2., 128,

129, 13011., 146, 150, 162^.,

i63«., i75''-> 248
Guy of y 219

Happiness, greatest of greatest
number, 104; intellectual, §^7;
§ 70 ; result of moral action, 355

Harris (T. L.), 241

Hedonism, § 51

Hegely 145, 278, 282

Heredity, 59, 75Ȥ86

Hereditary property, § 133

Historical school, 282

HobbeSy 250, 276, 278, 281, 282

Hoffbauery i68«.

378

INDEX.

Hollands 274/7., 276//.

Houti^ 182

Hughes^ 162

Hugo^ 277

Humanity, love of, 117; religion

of, §111
Hunger, 193
Huret^ 157
Hypocrisy, 330

Idea, directing, of organism, 82
Ideal, and real, §11; moral, 25 ;
psychological, § 66, 45, 51 et
seq,; construction of, 49
Idealism, § 13, 22, 283
Idealists, 21

Id^-force, 86, 93«., 174 et seq.
Idiot, morality of, 163
Imagination, § 29
Imbecile, morality of, 163
Imitation, 73; and sympathy, 368
Immorality, cause of, 155 ; nature
of, 292; struggle against, IV.

P-334
Imperatives, of Kant, 26 et seq.
Impressions, communicability of,

124
Impulsive, criminal, 157, 347 ;

man, 348
Imputability, 348
Individual, dignity of (v. Kant),

§21; the moral, 127, 1"^$ et seq.
Individualism, 227, § 113, 284
Industrialism, § 107
Inheritance, and culture, 273^.
Instinct, gregarious, 74
Intentions, moral, 324
Interest, § 54; and desire, 105;

collective, § 56
Invention, 24, 25, 39, 283
Instability, pathological, 176 ;

mental, 177; and aboulia, § 33
Instruction, obligatory, p. 290
Irreflection, § 36
Irresponsibility, 343
James, W., 57, 58, 67, I50«.,

I75«., 176
Janet (Paul), 37, 137, i75«., 354;

(Pierre) I77«.
J(^* 221
Jesiis, 255

Jones, 198
Joy, § 70

Judge, the State as, 291
Jus, \at9e et necis, 201 ; maritale,
203 ; utendi, 216 ; abutendi, 216
Justice, 42, 204, 250, § 128, § 129

Kant, his philosophy, 14; his
Ethics, §9; Critique of Pure
Reason, 15; his imperatives, 26
et seq.; and the future of hu-
manity, 29 ; and the dignity of
the human person, 31, 34, 36,
39, §126; on the formal con-
ditions of morality, 34 ; on ab-
solute moral value, 37 ; his
method, §22, 40; and pure
reason, 52 ; on the unique
motive of moral conduct, 64, 81 ;
and Free Will, § 43 ; his theory
applies to superhuman beings,
65; his psychology, 78; his
hypothesis, 82; his aesthetics,
123, 124, 143, 145; and pro-
perty, § 130; and personal value,
274 ; on social contract, 277 ;
and popular will, 280 ; on dele-
gation of the powers of the
State, 281 ; and responsibility,
335 ; and sanction, 354

Kovalewsky, 225, 242;;.

Krause, 200

Kropoikin (Prince), 203«., 204;/.,
264;x.

Labour, division of, § 103 ; § 107 ;

defined, 309
Laccassagne, 158, 349
Lalande, 196, 202, 207
Land, 224
Langy 22%n.
Lceveieye, 224
Law, 204, § 99
Lecky, 98».
Legislation, § 134
Legrain, 163, 182
Leibnitz, 41, 133, 145
Lemiinier, 279
Letourneau, I92«., 196^.,. 228/1.,

303
Leviathan (Hobbes), 248, 282

INDEX.

379

Levirate, 195, 198 ^/ seq.

Liberty, the ratio essendi of duty,
I5» 33; noumenal, 33; and
morality, II. pp. 80 et seq.^ § 45,
§ 46 ; individual, 235 ; meta-
physical, § 126

Lichtenberger^ 236, 239^.

Life, law of, 46 ; political, § 95

Locke, 277, 281

Lombroso, i^on.y 156, 158, 160,
i62«., i68«., I79«., i8i«., 182,

184, 315
Lourbet^ 315
Louvii^ 244

Love, 116, 129, 193, 242, 243
Lynching, 352

Machinery, 218, 227

Mackenzie (J. S.), 4I«., 43«., 64«.,
98;/., 112// , 207;/., 209W.,
2I9»., 222;/ , 2277/ , 233«.,
263;;., 273«.

Mackenzie ^ 198

MacLenttan^ 195

Magnan, 164, 182

Maine (Sir H.), 196, 207;/., 21 iw.,
21 3«., 222«., 267;/.

Malapert^ 29 et seq,

Malebranche, 37, 342

Man, a psychological being, 10;
a social being, 10; makes his
own morality, 1 1 ; the divine in,
114; the wise, 121 et seq. ; and
animals, 327

Mania, "reasoning," 162; ** ex-
hibitionist," 174

Manneis, good, § 36

Manouvrier^ 182

Marion ^ 35

Marriage, 186, 214, 317

Marro^ 196

Marshall y 217/J., 227«.

Marx (Karl), 6, 226«., 227«., 304

Matriarchate, 195, § 90

Mazzarella, I95«., 196, 200

Maudsley^ 157, 158, i62«., i63«.,
i69«., I79«.

Mean, the golden, 43, 138

Meek, the, § 121

Megalomania, 165

Meno, 70«.

Mercier, lOOn., 126/;., 1 40;/.

Merit, 358

Merriam, 278

Metaphysics, 5, 50

Method, § 26

Middendof/ {von), 200n,

Middle Ages, the, and friendship,

327

Might, 250

Mill (John Stuart), 36, 46, 47,
ioo«., io7«., 112

Mobiles et Motifs, distinguished,
87«.

Moderation, § 67

Modesty, 332

Mohammed, 10, 255

Monadistic and Monistic views of
justice, 263//.

Money, 210, 243

Moral, crisis, § I ; Philosophy, 5 ;
Ideal, 7; and physical laws, 19;
theory, 25 ; activity, 25, 40 ;
hygiene, 28 ; consciousness, §17 ;
sense, 32 ; Will, I. ; worth and
duty, §20; subjectivism, §39;
inertia, 103 ; apotheosis of, 105 ;
precepts, 105; individual, 134;
firmness, 135; virtues, 142; in-
sanity, 162; imbecility, 162;
vertigo, 179; suggestion, 367

Moralists, Scotch and French, 32

Morality, ancient, §2; as taught
by philosophers, 5 ; conditions
of, § 6 ; scientific, 16 ; its do-
main, 19 ; technical character,
§12; and evolution, 20; and
the ** imperative," 26 et seq.;
applied, 40; sociological, "of
dry bread," lOi ; mystical, 116;
Greek, 144 ; in economics, 292 ;
"of slaves,*' 363

Morgan (Lloyd), 125//.

Morselli, 157, 169^., 187;/.

Munroe, 320

Mysticism, § 58

Napoleon, 254
Naturalism, § 13, § 50, 283
Nature of man, 121
Neo-platonists, 115
Nieboer, 198, 222

38o

INDEX.

Nietzsche^ 236 et seq.
Non-resistance, 241, § 118
Noumenon, 33, 81

Obligation, moral, 44, 75, 204-
Obsession, §81, 174
Oceania, 199
Ontogeny of societies, 191
Ojibeway Indians, 198
Optimism, Stoic, 122
Organisation, social, § 65 ; eco-
nomic, 292
Orthodoxy, 289
Over-man, the, § 114
Overwork, 186
Ovidi 6gn,

Pain-Pleasure, ii3«., 125

Passions, 118

Pastoral tribes, 215

Patten^ 293

Paulhan^ 57

Perception, §29, §31

Perfection, animal, 96; intel-
lectual, 114

Person, the real agent, § 47

Fhaedo, 23^, 42;?.

PhaedruSf 1151*.

Philosophy, ** poverty of," 6 ;
powerlessness of, 6; of science,
6; rights of, 12; phenomenist,
90

Physiology, mental, 45, 55

Pig, doctrine of, satisfied, 108

Piilofty 31, 50

Pity, 122, 239

Plato, 3, 4, 22, 23, 30, 42, 120,
205, 249, 298

Play, 128

Pleasure, psychological, 136; in-
tellectual, 245, § 70

Pleasure- Pain, II3«., 125

Plotinus, 115

Plutocracy, § 98

Polyandry, 195

Polygamy, 195

Population, 206, 208

Positivism, 116

Potestas, patria, § 92

Powerlessness, of religion, 8; of
philosophy, 6

Prevision, sociological, 20, 25 ;

scientific, 20
Prichard, 162
Priestly y 104
Proaly 209«., 2II«.
Promiscuity, 192, 195
Property, 202, § los, § 106, § 130,

§131, §132
Prostitution, 315
ProudhoHj 279, 280
Psychic, nature of processes, 64
Psychology, scientific, 12 ; its

teaching, 53
Puchta, 200
Punishment, immorality of, 360;

utilitarian rdle of, 361
Pyromania, 169/1.
Pyrrhonism, 4

Quetelety 157

Ratzel^ 197

Raymondy 176

Real, and Ideal, § 11

Reason, §41; data of, §18; de-
fined by Marion, 35 ; pure
practical, § 27 ; human and
animal, 96

Recidivism, 159

Reform, § 132

Religion, 3 ; powerlessness of, 8 ;
of Humanity and the Unknow-
able, §111; of suffering, 240

Religious institutions, 192; senti-
ments, 332

Kenardy 298

Renouvier^ 13, 14, 16, 1 7, 31, 4I,
65, 86, 88, I07«, I2i«, 180,
270, 314, 318, 321

Renunciation, 242

Republic (of Plato), 42«., 359

Respect of children to parents, 326

Responsibility, social, 334

Revolt, right to, 284

Riboty 55«., 69, ioo«., 116, I24«.,
I2S«., I27«., I40«., i5o«.,
162;/., i68«., i69«., 175;/.

Richard, 315, 363

Right, 204, 250, §123, §124,
§ 125, § 126, § 127, § 130

** Rights of Man," 268

INDEX.

381

Risk, §71
Ritchie^ 23911 .
RoberUoHy 275«., 277;?.
Rochefoucauld {^t La), 126
Roger St Thorold^ 226 n,
Romanes, 56, 97
Romanticism, 40
Rousseau, 33, 277, 278, 280, 281
Ruskin, 123;/.

Sabatier, 289

Samoyedes, 201

Sanction, 352

Savage, 162

Sayigny, 277

Science, of Ethics, 16 ; a product
of social life, 38 ; conscience,
liberty and, §45; instruction
should be given to all, 290

Schelling, 278

Schiller, 193W.

Schmidt, 249

Schutz, 197

Sie, 226//.

Self-perception, § 32

Semitic tribes, 207

Sensorial type, §3L

Sentiments, collective, § 108;
primitive, § 109; genuine human,

Sergi, 157, 158

Sexes, co-education and equality
of, 320

Sexual love, 126, 129; instinct
morbid, 165, 181 ; disorders,
l6gn.; relations, 192, 196

Sidgwick, 64«., II5«., 138;/.

Sioux, 199

Sismondi, 280

Slavery, 193, 197, 199 et seq.,
% 105, 251, 276

Smith, Adam, § 24

Sociability, 39, 76, 126, §64, 141

Social contract, § 137 ; disintegra-
tion, 3 5 conscience, 39 ; statics
and dynamics, 191 ; responsi-
bility, 334 ; action, 350

Societies, animal, 128, 203, §94;
organisation, § 65, 133

Sociology, its r6le, 17; interpreta-
tion of its data, 21; present

state of, § 87 ; anticipations,
§112
Socrates, 70, 108, 154, 156, 254,

337

Sohm, 200

Solidarity, 122; immoral effects
of» §85 ; professional, 221, 235,
273; Durkheim's "mechanical."
74, 204, 231; "organic," 218,
231 ; in economic order, 301

Sollier, 163

Sorley, 98^., 124/^., 207/;.

Soul, phenomena of, 23 ; of divine
origin, 42

Sovereignty, § 135. § ' 37

Spencer, Herbert, 8, § 25, 53, 125,
128, 146, 193;/., 195, 224, 225,
230 et sea., 267«., 284

Spinoza, 38, 41, 52, 53, 89, 112,
§ 59, 239, 250, 251

Spiritualism, § 13 ; dualistic, 7, 23

Stability, morbid, 176

State, 202 et seq., V.

Stein, 285

Steinthetz, 200

Stimer, 249

Stoicism, 3, 4, 18, § 60, 138, 208,

327, 385
Stout, 55«., 113;/.
Struelens, 182
Subjectivity, its r61e, 26
Suggestion, pathological, 1 1 ;

moral, 367
Suicide, 187
Sympathy, and duty, 44 ; mark of

aptitude, 73, 74, 124, §61,

231 ; imitation, 368

Taboo, 228

Tacitus, 224

Tamn, 212

Tarde, 73, 146, 284, 288

Taxation, 300

Temperance, 139

Tendencies, instinctive, 53 et seq, ;
fugitive, 62 ; causes of volition,
80; conflict of, 71; to good,
§38; and heredity, §40; indi-
vidual and collective, 76; differ-
ent moral, §49; to pleasure,
99 et seq., 192 ; modified, 106 ;

382

INDEX.

to happiness, 113; attracted by
mystery, 116; social, 124 ei
seq.y §65; constituting char-
acter, I2,(>eiseq.\ to co-ordinate,
152 ei seq. ; to crime, V. , passim ;
of strong to oppress the weak,
223; development of scientific
and artistic, 229 et seq. ; aristo-
cratic and democratic, 252

limausy 23, 42;;.

Tolstoi y 236 et seq. , § 1 16

Totem, 228

TourftiaCf 165//.

Tradition, power of, 74

Truth, § 140

Tyranny, socialistic, 220

Uebermensch, § 114
Unbalanced, criminals, § 79
Unions, trades, 218, § 104, § 139
Unity, religious
Unfit, sacrifice of, § 1 15
Uniformity, of tendencies and

heredity, § 40
Unknowable, the, § III
Utilitarianism, 49, 103, 106 et seq.

Vengeance, 212
Verga^ 162

Vertu (Jules), 179

Vertigo, moral, § 83

Vice, 153

Vidocq^ 157

Violence, 245

Virtue, private, 37 ; and sentiment,

44 ; and truth, § 68
Voisiy 164

Wages system, 304

Walker, 217/;.

WamotSy 183

Wealth, and morality, 295

Westermarck^ I93«.

White, Sn.

Wife, choice of, 186

Will, good, 79

Woman, §90; work of, 308;

rights of, 314
Work, of women and children,

308
Workman, the, his value, 309

Yvernh, 158

Zarathrustra, 237 et seq,
Zenker, 211, 225, 249;/.
ZenOy 123

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shows. " — Spectator,

XXVII. AN INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE
PSYCHOLOGY. By Professor C. Lloyd Morgan. With
Diagrams.

** A strong and complete exposition of Psychology, as it takes shape in a
mind previously informed with biological science. . . . Well written, ex-
tremely entertaining, and intrinsically valuable." — Saturday /Review,

XXVIII. THE ORIGINS OF INVENTION : A Study of
Industry among Primitive Peoples. By Otis T. Mason,
Curator of the Department of Ethnology in the United States
National Museum.

**A valuable history of the development of the inventive faculty." —
Nature.

XXIX. THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN: A Study of
THE Nervous System in relation to Education. By
Henry Herbert Donaldson, Professor of Neurology in the
University of Chicago.

** We can say with confidence that Professor Donaldson has executed his
work with much care, judgment, and discrimination.'' — The Lancet,

New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.

XXX. EVOLUTION IN ART; As Illustrated by the
Life-Histories of Designs. By Professor Alfred C.
Haddon. With 130 Illustrations.
**It is impossible to speak too highly of this most unassuming and
invaluable book," —yottmai of AnthropologictU Institute,

XXXL THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMOTIONS. By
Th. Ribot, Professor at the College of France, Editor of the
Revue Philosophique,
"Professor Ribot's treatment is careful, modern, and adequate." —
Ac<idemy.

XXXII. HALLUCINATIONS AND ILLUSIONS : A Study
OF THE Fallacies of Perception. By EdiMund Parish.
**This remarkable little volume." — Daily News,

XXXIIL THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY. By E. W. Scripture,
Ph.D. (Leipzig). With 124 Illustrations.

XXXIV. SLEEP : Its Physiology, Pathology, Hygiene, and
Psychology. By Marie de ManaceYne (St. Petersburg).
Illustrated.

XXXV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DIGESTION.
By A LocKHART Gillespie, M.D., F.R.C.P. Ed., F.R.S.
Ed. With a large number of Illustrations and Diagrams.

" Dr. Gillespie's work is one that has been greatly needed. No com-
prehensive collation of this kind exists in recent English Literature." —
American Journal of the Medical Sciences,

XXXVI. DEGENERACY: Its Causes, Signs, and Results.
By Professor Eugene S. Talbot, M.D., Chicago. With
Illustrations.

" The author is bold, original, and suggestive, and his work is a con-
tribution of real and indeed great value, more so on the whole than anything
that has yet appeared in this country." — American Journal of Psychology,

XXXVII. THE RACES OF MAN: A Sketch of Ethno-
graphy AND Anthropology. By J. Deniker. With 178
Illustrations.

** Dr. Deniker has achieved a success which is well-nigh phenomenaL" —
British Medical Journal,

XXXVIII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION. An
Empirical Study of the Growth of Religious Con-
sciousness. By Edwin Diller Starbuck Ph.D., Assistant
Professor of Education, Leland Stanford Junior University.

" No one interested in the study of religious life and experience can
afford to neglect this volume." — Morning Herald,

New York : Charles Scribnbr's Sons.

XXXIX. THE CHILD : A Study in the Evolution of Man.

By Dr. Alexander Francis Chamberlain, M.A., Ph.D.,

Lecturer on Anthropology in Clark University, Worcester

(Mass.). With Illustrations.

*' The work contains much cuiious information, and should be studied by

those who have to do with children."— 5'-*^^^? Daily Telegraph,

XL. THE MEDITERRANEAN RACE. By Professor Sergi.
With over loo Illustrations.
'* M. Sergi has given us a lucid and complete exposition of his views on a
subject of supreme interest." — Irish Times,

XLL THE STUDY OF RELIGION. By Morris Jastrow,
Jun., Ph.D., Professor in the University of Pennsylvania.

**This work presents a careful survey of the subject, and forms an
admirable introduction to any particular branch of it." — Methodist Times.

XLIL HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
TO THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
By Karl von Zittel.
"It is a very masterly treatise, written with a wide grasp of recent
discoveries. " — Publishers^ Circular,

XLIIL THE MAKING OF CITIZENS : A Study in Com-
parative Education. By R. E. Hughes, M.A. (Oxon.),
B.Sc. (Lond.).
" Mr. Hughes gives a lucid account of the exact position of Education in
England, Germany, France, and the United States. The statistics
present a clear and attractive picture of the manner in which one of the
greatest questions now at issue is being solved both at home and abroad."
— Standard,

New York : Charles Scribnbr's Sons.

IBSEN'S DRAMAS.

Edited by William Archer.

i2mo. CLOTH, PRICE $1.25 PER VOLUME.

" We seem at last to be shown men and women as they are ; and at first it
is more than we can endure, . . . All Ibsen* s characters speak and act cu if
they were hypnotised ^ and under their creator^ s imperious demand to reveal
themselves. There never was such a mirror held up to nature before : it is
too terrible, ... Yet we must return to Ibsen, with his remorseless surgery^
his remorseless electric-light, until we^ too, have grown strong and learned to
face the naked— if necessary, the flayed and bleedings recUity,'^ — Speaker
(London).

Vol. L "A DOLUS HOUSE,'' "THE LEAGUE OF
YOUTH," and "THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY." With
Portrait of the Author, and Biographical Introduction by
WilliamArcher.

Vol. IL ** GHOSTS,'' "AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,"
and "THE WILD DUCK." With an Introductory Note.

Vol. in. " LADY INGER OF OSTRAT," "THE VIKINGS
AT HELGELAND," "THE PRETENDERS." With an
Introductory Note and Portrait of Ibsen.

Vol. IV. "EMPEROR AND GALILEAN." With an
Introductory Note by William Archer.

Vol. V. "ROSMERSHOLM," "THE LADY FROM THE
SEA," "HEDDA GABLER." Translated by William
Archer. With an Introductory Note.

Vol. VL "PEER GYNT: A DRAMATIC POEM."
Authorised Translation by William and Charles Archer.

The sequence of the plays in each volume is chronological ; the complete
set of volumes comprising the dramas thus presents them in chronological
order.

" The art of prose translation does not perhaps enjoy a very high literary
status in England, but we have no hesitation in numbering the present
version of Ibsen, so far as it has gone (Vols. I. and II.), among the very
best achievements, in that kind, of our generation."— ^fadfew^.

"We have seldom, if ever, met with a translation so absolutely
idiomatic. '*— Glasgow Herald, \

New York : Charles Scribnbr's Sons.

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